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>4 »l »— 







THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 














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WORKS BY JOHN R. KELSO. 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

Octavo. 833 pages, . . . . $3.00 


DEITY ANALYZED and THE DEVIL’S 
DEFENSE. 

Cloth. 12mo. 460 pages, . . . $1.50 


THE BEAL BLASPHEMERS. 


Paper. l2mo. 138 pages, . . . .50 









The Bible Analyzed 


TWENTY LECTURES. 


— by — 



t 


NEW YORK: 

PUBLISHED AT THE TRUTH SEEKER OFFICE, 
33 Clinton Place. 




Copyrighted, 1884, 

BY 

John R. Kelso. 


fv 






.1 

The Truth Seeker Company, 

Frecthouglit Publishers, Printers, and Electro typers. 


CONTENTS. 


LECTTTKE. PJLGE 

Preface, - -- -- --. 5 

I.—The Old Testament,.- 9 ; 

II.—The Old Testament (concluded), - - - - 31 

III.—The New Testament, - -- -- -- - 6(> 
IY.—The New Testament (concluded) - - - - 104 

Y.—The Creation, .. 135 

YI.—The Creation (continued), ------ 179' 

YII.—The Creation (concluded), ------- 213 

YIII.—The Deluge, ---------- - 252 

IX.—The Exodus, - -- -- -- -- - - 294 

X.—The Exodus (concluded), ------ 332 

XI.—The Miracles of the Bible, ------ 360 1 

XII.—The Errors of the Bible, ------- 391 

XIII.—The Errors of the Bible (concluded), - - - 426 
XIY.—The Prophecies of the Bible, ----- 476 

XY.—The Devil or Satan of the Bible, - - - - 515 
XYI.—-The Heaven and the Hell of the Bible, - - 557 

XYII.—The Sabbath of the Bible,.608 

XYIII.— 1 The God of the Bible,.661 

XIX.—The Messiah or Savior, - -- -- --717 

XX.—The Messiah cr Savior (concluded),, - - - 77S 




























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I 


PREFACE. 

The champions of the Bible have always arrogantly 
claimed that this book is the inspired Word of God ; that 
all of its teachings are absolutely true ; that they are all 
of a high and holy character ; that they are the source of 
all true knowledge, all true virtue, and all true morality ; 
that an implicit belief in them is absolutely essential to 
salvation; and that to doubt either their authenticity or 
the holiness of their character constitutes a sin of so hein¬ 
ous a nature that it inevitably subjects the doubter to 
eternal burnings in fire and brimstone. To prove that 
this whole claim is utterly false; to prove that the Bible 
is not the inspired Word of God ; that its teachings are 
not absolutely true; that they are not of a high and holy 
character, etc., is the object of this book. 

Believing that such a book will do much good; believ¬ 
ing that it will save thousands from the unutterable hor¬ 
rors of religious despair, such as I myself have suffered; 
believing that it will even save many from the maniac’s 
cell or the suicide’s grave, I submit it to the world without 
any apology, and leave its merits to be determined by 
those who may give it a fair and unprejudiced examina¬ 
tion. That a few errors and imperfections may be found 


PREFACE. 


Ti 

in it, I have no doubt. It would be strange, indeed, if so 
extensive a work on so important a subject should be 
found absolutely free from all imperfections. This is es¬ 
pecially true of a work written, as this has been, under 
great difficulties—under difficulties that few men would 
ever surmount at all. 

Being almost totally disabled by wounds received in the 
service of my country; being destitute of means; being 
often deprived of employment, by the relentless persecu¬ 
tions of the Church; and having a family of motherless 
and homeless children to support and educate on my lim¬ 
ited earnings, my home, while writing most of these lect¬ 
ures, has been an old deserted warehouse ; my seat has 
been an old, empty goods-box ; my table has been an old 
board propped up at both ends; my food has been often 
soda crackers or bread alone ; my bed has been but little 
of anything, and my company has been the bats that have 
kept up their monotonous circlings over my head. And 
jet, under circumstances apparently so hard; amid sur¬ 
rounding apparently so cheerless, my energies have never 
flagged. I have all the time been proud, independent, and 
hopeful. I have all the time felt that I was engaged in a 
great and good work; in a work that was to benefit my 
fellow-men long after my own eyes were closed in eternal 
slumber. I have never, for a moment, doubted the ulti¬ 
mate success of my long and arduous labors. And all I 
now ask is that, if the friends of Freethought find this 
book and my other writings to be works of real merit— 
works calculated to promote the cause of truth, of mental 
freedom, of humanity—they will cheerfully aid me all they 
can in placing these works before the world. This much 
I do ask. 


PREFACE. 


vii 

The fifth, sixth, seventh, eighteenth, nineteenth, and 
twentieth lectures of this course will be found to be 
almost identical with the six lectures that constitute 
my smaller work, entitled “ Deity Analyzed,” with which 
many of my readers are doubtless already acquainted. 

The Author. 


Modesto , Cal., May 1, 1884. 


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• . 









THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


LECTURE FIRST 

THE OLD TESTAMENT. 

I now propose to subject the Bible to a full and fair 
analysis; to require it, like any other book, to stand or fall 
on its own merit. I am aware that, in doing this, I shall 
be treading upon forbidden ground; upon ground which 
priestcraft, under the name of religion, has always claimed 
to be peculiarly its own, and, consequently, too sacred to 
be touched by any except those whom the “ Lord hath ap¬ 
pointed.” For my guides, however, I have chosen reason, 
science, and common sense, and these hold nothing too 
sacred for their touch. Whatever is able to bear the tests 
of their balances and their crucibles, they place, as an ad¬ 
ditional gem, in the glorious coronal of truth. Whatever 
fails io bear these tests, they reject as worthless, though 
it be a Bible, a religion, or even a God. 

That which is true can bear any amount of fair investi¬ 
gation. Error, alone, shuns investigation. If, then, the 
• contents of the Bible be absolutely true, the more we in¬ 
vestigate them, the more manifest will their truth become. 
If, as claimed by its advocates, the Bible be, indeed, the 
Word of God, should it not be able to stand upon its own 
merit ? If it cannot thus stand, ought it not to fall ? If 
its advocates did not seriously doubt its real merit, would 
they so earnestly object to its being fully and fairly inves¬ 
tigated ? 



10 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


As accepted by nearly all denominations of Christians, 
the Old Testament contains thirty-nine books. Of these 
books, sixteen seem to be devoted, principally, to the gen¬ 
eral history of the Hebrew nation. Two of the others, 
Esther and Job, seem to be partial biographies of the two 
persons whose names they respectively bear. Five others 
seem to be simply collections of songs, proverbs, etc. 
The remaining sixteen purport to be the writings of the 
same number of poets or prophets. 

As you are all well aware, our priests, who claim to be 
chosen of God for our instructors, have always taught us 
that the contents of these books are the inspired Word of 
God; that an implicit faith in their truth is absolutely 
necessary to salvation; that to deny, or even to doubt, the 
truth of any portion of these writings, will inevitably sub¬ 
ject us to the fearful consequences of God’s eternal ven¬ 
geance ; to the inconceivable horrors, the unutterable tor¬ 
ments, of absolutely endless burnings in the hottest flames 
of fire and brimstone. As you are also equally well aware, 
these priests have, in like manner, always taught us that 
God is absolutely infinite in duration, in extent, in wisdom, 
in power, in love, in justice, and in mercy; and that to 
doubt his infinite perfection in any of these attributes is 
inevitably to bring upon ourselves all the unutterable tor¬ 
ments of an endless hell. 

And now, let me ask, if these priestly teachings were all 
true, would we not have a right to expect that this God, as 
an infinitely perfect cause , would produce an infinitely perfect 
effect ? Can we conceive of an effect as being otherwise than 
is its cause? If not, would we not have a right to expect 
that the Bible, proceeding thus, as an effect , from an infi¬ 
nitely perfect source or cause, would, in its every department 
and bearing, be itself infinitely perfect, like its source or 
cause? Would we not have a right to expect that the 
truths embodied in this book would all be so manifest that 
to doubt them, and to be damned for doubting, would be 
utterly impossible? Would we not have a right to expect 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


11 


that this infinitely wise, this infinitely perfect, Being, in 
delivering his Word to men, would deliver it to them ab¬ 
solutely free from all obscurity, all absurdity, all obscenity, 
all triviality, all falsity, all immorality, all marks of igno¬ 
rance ; all imperfections of any conceivable kind? Would we 
not also have a right to expect that a Being so infinitely wise 
and just would deliver his Word, man’s only guide to sal¬ 
vation, equally and impartially, to all his equally needy 
and equally deserving children? Would we not have a 
right to expect, further, that he would effectually secure 
this precious Word from all possibility of loss or of cor¬ 
ruption ? In short, would we not have a right to expect that 
he would make a success of that which he undertook to 
accomplish ? 

On the other hand, would we have any right to expect 
that such a Being would deliver to men, as their highest 
code of morals, their only guide to salvation, a book full 
of obscurity, absurdity, triviality, falsity, immorality, gross 
ignorance, bad grammar, and many other faults and im¬ 
perfections ? Would we have any right to expect that he 
would be so horribly partial and unjust as to suffer three 
hundred and ninety-nine four-hundredths of his children 
to be eternally lost in hell, while to the remaining four- 
hundredth part alone he gave this wonderfully precious 
book ? Would we have any right to expect that he would 
deliver the most important portions of this book to one 
man alone, an acknowledged liar, thief, and murderer, and 
then eternally damn all those who were unable to believe 
that man’s testimony? Would we have any right to ex¬ 
pect that he would select as his special favorites, his pe¬ 
culiar people, the sole guardian of his Holy Word, an 
insignificant tribe of men, noted only for their gross igno¬ 
rance and superstition, their abject servility, their inordi¬ 
nate selfishness, their base treachery, their disgusting 
immorality, and their horrible blood-thirstiness? Would 
we have any right to expect that he would leave his Holy 
Word exposed to certain loss, and to equally certain cor- 


12 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ruptions ? Would we have any right to expect that, for 
the promulgation of his Holy Word, he would depend 
upon the entirely accidental invention of paper and of 
printing, the avarice of book-sellers, and the fidelity of 
unauthorized, incompetent, and dishonest copyists and 
translators? Would we have any right to expect that, 
after his Holy Word had been long entirely lost, he would 
permit scores of unscrupulous priests to write books of 
their own and palm them off upon the world as reproduc¬ 
tions of his lost Holy Word? Would we have any right 
to expect that he would permit angry, interested, ignorant, 
and unscrupulous, uninspired men, in noisy and discord¬ 
ant councils, to determine, by vote, which ones of these 
many books were “ base forgeries,” and which ones were 
the “true Word of God?” Would we have any right to 
expect that he would permit one of these noisy councils to 
make one set of these books true, and another council 
make this set false, and another set true ? Would we have 
ajiy right to expect that he would have scores of widely 
different Holy Words, each claiming to be his only true 
Holy Word ? Would we have any right to expect that he 
would finally have the truth of his Holy Word established 
by the sword, the dungeon, the rack, and the stake? 
Would we have any right to expect that, in his Holy 
Word, he would represent the earth as constituting the 
entire universe; that he would represent it as flat and 
stationary; that he would represent the sky as a solid 
structure or firmament; that he would represent large 
bodies of. water as resting on the upper side of this 
firmament or solid sky ; that he would represent the sun, 
the moon, and the stars as being all at an equal distance 
from the earth, and as being all set or stuck, like nails, into 
the under side of this same firmament; that he would thus 
represent the sun, the moon, and the stars as being nearer 
the earth than were the waters which were above the firma¬ 
ment ; that he would represent this setting of the sun, the 
moon, and the stars into a solid sky as necessary in order 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


13 


to keep them from falling down upon the earth; and that 
he would represent himself as sitting upon a material 
throne that rested on the upper side of this same firma¬ 
ment ? Would we have any right to expect that he would 
represent himself as encouraging his chosen people to lie, 
to steal, to murder, and to practice polygamy, concubinage, 
etc.? Would we have any right to expect that he would 
represent himself as devoting much time to the teaching of 
the priests how to make bonnets and petticoats for them¬ 
selves, and how to roast various kinds of meats? Would 
we have any right to expect that he would represent him¬ 
self as pardoning a certain amount of sins, in return for a 
certain amount of roast beef? Would we have any right 
to expect that he would represent himself as so shockingly 
indecent as to expose his own “ back parts ” to the morbid 
gaze of one old man ? In a word, would we have any right 
to expect the Bible to be what it certainly is ? Would 
we have any right to expect that God would make a per¬ 
fect failure of his whole undertaking? 

Of all the books of the Old Testament, by far the most 
important are those which profess to give an account of 
the creation, of the deluge, and of the laws and the doings 
of the Hebrew nation. All the rest of the Bible depends 
upon these books. If, then, these books prove to be un- 
authentic, the whole Bible becomes, of necessity, totally 
worthless, and all the religions founded upon it reduce to 
base, priestly impositions. We would naturally expect, 
therefore, that the authenticity of these books would be 
established beyond all possibility of doubt. We would 
also naturally expect that these most important portions 
of God’s Holy Word would be entirely free from all hu¬ 
man imperfections. But how do we find them ? 

At the very outset of our investigation, we find that 
every one of these books is anonymous and without date. 
This fact alone strips them of all just claim to belief. In 
regard to only two of them, Ezra and Nehemiah, can we 
find sufficient data upon which to base even a reasonable 


14 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


guess as to who the authors were. These two books, or,, 
at least, certain portions of them, were probably written 
by the men whose names they respectively bear. In re¬ 
gard to this matter, however, there is among Bible critics 
a great difference of opinion. This difference of opinion 
exists especially in regard to the Book of Nehemiah, in 
which the names of persons are mentioned who did not 
live till one hundred years after the death of Nehemiah. 
(See Jaddua, the priest, and Darius, the king of Persia, in 
Neh. xii, 22.) This portion of the book, therefore, could 
not have been written by Nehemiah. In the same way, 
other portions of this book are proved to have been writ¬ 
ten long after the time of Nehemiah. 

Whether these books be authentic or unauthentic, how¬ 
ever, makes very little difference. In neither case are 
they of any interest whatever to anybody but the Jews. 
Indeed, their entire want, of importance is probably the 
reason why the authenticity of these books has never been 
more generally called in question. No one has ever 
seemed to care much whether they were or were not 
authentic. Of the other fourteen historical books of the 
Old Testament, no one pretends to know who their 
author’s were, nor when, nor where, nor in what language, 
nor on what material they were written. Most theologians, 
however, find it convenient to assume that Moses was the 
author of the Pentateuch, and that Joshua was the author 
of the book that bears his name. That this assump¬ 
tion is totally false, I will abundantly prove, as I 
proceed. These books, however, being, by far, the most 
important of all, I shall defer their consideration until I 
have examined all the others. I will then give them the 
careful notice that their importance demands. 

The remaining eight historical books of the Old Testa¬ 
ment are Judges, Ruth, the two books of Samuel, the two 
books of Kings, and the two books of Chronicles. As to who 
were the authors of these books, and as to when they were 
written, no Bible critic pretends to know. In their very 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


15 


desperation, however, a few theologians have ventured to 
assume that Samuel was the author of the two books that 
bear his name. For this assumption, however, there is 
no ground at all. As well might we assume that Ruth 
was the authoress of the book that bears her name, and 
that some man by the name of Chronicles was the author 
of the books of that name. Like nearly all other books, 
the various books of the Bible were named, not after their 
several authors, but after the principal persons or subjects 
concerning which they severally treat. This is true of the 
two books of Samuel. He was simply one of the principal 
heroes of those books. His death and funeral are re¬ 
counted at length in the first book, and in the second the 
history of the Jews is continued for over forty years after 
the death of Samuel. These facts clearly prove that the 
books were not written by Samuel. By whom, then, were 
they written, and what do we know of that person’s char¬ 
acter for intelligence and veracity? 

Of the book of Judges I need say but little. No one 
pretends to know who wrote it, or when it was written. 
Consequently, it has no claim at all to authenticity. In 
the eighth verse of the first chapter, we read: “Now the 
children of Israel had fought against Jerusalem and had 
taken it.” The fact that the book starts out thus with an 
allusion to the taking of Jerusalem is proof positive that 
it was not written till after the occurrence of that event. 
Elsewhere, however, we learn that Jerusalem was not 
taken till during the reign of David. This places the 
writing of the book at least four hundred years after the 
occurrence of the principal events which it professes to 
describe. It is quite probable, therefore, that the book is 
simply a collection of traditions. At any rate, many of the 
events which it professes to describe, such as Samson’s 
various exploits, are of too incredible a nature to be 
recorded in authentic history. 

As to the story of Ruth, it is of no importance what¬ 
ever, and is, moreover, in some of its details, almost 


16 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


indecent. The substance of it all is that, by the advice of 
her mother-in-law, Ruth, a handsome young widow, went 
out at night, to a threshing-floor, and crept into bed with 
Boaz, a half-drunken but wealthy old bachelor, wdio was 
sleeping there, and who, overcome by the charms of the 
cunning and lovely Ruth, was induced to marry her. 

Since, as Paul declares, “ all scripture is profitable. . . 
for instruction. . this scripture concerning Ruth and 
Boaz may be profitable for the instruction of those old 
bachelors who wish still to remain in single blessedness. 
Seeing how easily the poor old Boaz was overcome and 
made a benedict by the artful, if not immodest, trick of the 
beautiful Ruth, these old bachelors may learn to avoid a 
similar fate. They may learn that it is never safe for an old 
bachelor, especially when sleeping alone out at a straw- 
stack or a threshing-floor, to permit a beautiful young 
widow to get into bed with him. It may also be that 
buxom young widows, eager to remarry, are expected to 
learn, from Ruth’s example, how to warm up sluggish old 
bachelors, and make them willing to become happy hus¬ 
bands. I know of nothing else that can be learned from 
this rather immoral story. 

The two books of Kings are universally admitted to be 
anonymous; and, with this admission, they can have no 
claim to be authentic histories. When they were written, 
or where, no one pretends to know. That they were written, 
however, at a much later date than is usually assigned to 
them, is proved by the fact that the second book gives an 
account of the Babylonish Captivity. They evidently 
could not have been written, therefore, until after the 
occurrence of that event. This places the writing of them 
at least four hundred years after many of the events which 
they profess to record. Like the book of Judges, they 
w^ere doubtless written from traditions. 

With few exceptions, the two books of Chronicles cover 
the same grounds that are covered by the two books of 
Kings. To Chronicles, therefore, I need not give any 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


17 


separate notice. Like Judges and Kings, they were writ¬ 
ten at a much later date than is usually assigned to them. 
Indeed, we have no proof that any portion of the Bible 
was written before the Babylonish Captivity, or about 
one thousand years after the time of Moses, and four 
hundred and fifty years before the time of Christ. 

Being universally admitted to be an anonymous writing, 
the book of Esther can have no claim to be regarded as 
authentic history. Luther describes it as a book filled 
with “heathenish extravagance,” and as one which was 
“more worthy than all of being excluded from the canon.” 
Admitting, however, that the story of Esther be true, to 
what does it amount? At best, it is merely an account of 
the adventures of a beautiful woman who sought the 
extremely doubtful honor of becoming the favorite mistress 
of a king wdiose drunken debaucheries had so disgusted 
his lawful wife that she refused any longer to appear in 
his presence. The author highly approves this woman’s 
conduct. For my own part,. however, I see nothing very 
laudable in it. Are our women expected, as far as their 
circumstances will permit, to follow her example ? If not, 
what benefit is to be derived from this story of her ro¬ 
mantic amour? 

As to the book of Job, Dr. Clarke enumerates ten grave 
grounds fori doubting its authenticity. These grounds, 
which he gives at length, are certainly sufficient to strip 
the book of all value as a history. The learned Jewish 
authors, Eben Ezra and Spinoza, also declare that this 
book is not a Jewish production at all and that, conse¬ 
quently, it does not properly consitute any part of the 
Bible. With all this, and a great deal more, testimony 
against it, can the book have any claims upon our belief? 
Must we believe it or be damned? 

Some theologians hold that this book was probably writ¬ 
ten by Moses. On equally good grounds, others hold that 
it was probably written five hundred years later, by Solo¬ 
mon. Others still, on equally good grounds, hold that it 


18 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED, 


was probably not written at all till tlie fifth century of the 
Christian era. When, and by whom, do you say it was 
written ? 

As a poetical romance, the story of Job is very beautiful 
—far superior to any others of the poetical fictions of the 
Bible. Its sublime language and its well-chosen imagery 
indicate a higher degree of mental cultivation than is 
indicated by any others of the Old Testament writings. 
Indeed, this evident superiority is one of the'grounds 
assigned by Bible critics for doubting that it is a Hebrew 
production. 

If regarded as genuine history, this story conveys to us 
much important information. It makes known the fact 
that, no matter what he may be now, the devil, in Job’s 
time, was a person who walked about as do men—that he was 
an accomplished gentleman, an eminent scholar, a regular 
attendant at church, a companion of the sons of God. It 
also makes known the fact that, no matter what he may be 
now, in Job’s time, God was likewise a person; that 
he frequented the same church at which his sons and 
the devil were wont to meet; that he paid very little atten¬ 
tion to his sons, directing his discourse exclusively to the 
devil, whom he evidently regarded as a personage more 
worthy of his attention; that at one of these meetings he 
wagered his reputation as a judge of human character that 
the devil could not make the sturdy old Job curse; that, 
in order to decide this matter, he instructed the devil to 
have all of Job’s ten children slain, and all his property 
destroyed or carried away; that the devil had all this 
done, and yet failed to make Job curse; that, consequently, 
God won this first wager; that, when they next met, at 
church, these same two gentlemanly sporting characters 
laid another wager to the same effect, but, by the condi¬ 
tions of which, the devil was to try Job with bodily afflic¬ 
tions; that the devil did this; that he covered Job all over 
with boils; that he thus made him curse like a sailor; and 
that, consequently, he won this second wager. And now, 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 19 

let me ask, does salvation depend upon onr implicitly 
believing all these things? 

The Book of Psalms seems to be simply a miscellaneous 
collection of songs, most of which are of a religious nature. 
Similar collections of songs may be found among the writ¬ 
ings of all civilized nations. By all Bible critics, the 
Psalms are admitted to have been written, or at least 
composed, by various authors, and at various times, dur¬ 
ing a period of over seven hundred years. As to who 
collected them into one book, and as to who first pro¬ 
nounced them to be inspired writings, no one pretends to 
know. Had any other collection of songs reached us, 
through the same channel, it would have had just as good 
a claim to be the result of divine inspiration as has the 
Book of Psalms. Whatever beauties, therefore, or what¬ 
ever blemishes may be found in the Psalms, they are of 
no consequence in our present investigation. 

The Book of Proverbs is simply a collection of wise 
sayings, such as are to be found among all nations. If 
found in any other book, they would be just as useful— 
just as much the result of divine inspiration, as they now 
are found in the Bible. 

The Book of Ecclesiastes is universally admitted to be 
anonymous and without date. As to authenticity, there¬ 
fore, it can claim none at all. Certain theologians assume 
that it was written by Solomon; and although this assump¬ 
tion is entirely unsustained by any proof, it may probably 
be correct. The book seems to be a w r ail of disappointment 
from some broken-down debauchee, who could no longer 
find pleasure in dissipation; and, if we can believe any 
portion of the Bible, Solomon, in his later years, was just 
such a man. Seven hundred wives and three hundred 
concubines would be sufficient to make almost any man 
turn preacher, and cry, “All is vanity” Indeed, at the 
present day, one wife frequently makes a man painfully 
sensible of the fact that nearly “all is vanity.” 

Like all the rest, the Book of Canticles is anonymous and 


20 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


without date. Besides this, it is, at best, only a collection 
of silly and obscene love songs, totally unfit to be found in 
the library of any decent person. 

As I have already stated, the remaining sixteen books 
of the Old Testament claim to be the writings of the same 
number of poets or prophet. These writings will be 
fully analyzed in future lectures. For want of time, I can 
not analyze them now. Indeed in our present investiga¬ 
tion, they are of very little importance. The Jewish 
religion, being fully established before any of them were 
written, does not, in any manner, depend upon them. 
Besides this, they always were rejected as worthless by 
the great body of the Hebrews themselves. Only two 
tribes ever did accept them as genuine scriptures; and 
even these tribes were far from unanimous in thus accept¬ 
ing them. 

I have now briefly, but, as I think, clearly, shown that 
thirty-three of the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament 
are either of no importance in our present discussion, or 
are totally destitute of any claim to authenticity. Indeed, 
by ten whole tribes of the Hebrews, and by a portion of 
the remaining two tribes, these thirty-three books, and 
the Book of Joshua always were rejected. As an entire 
people, the Hebrews never did accept any portion of the 
whole Bible except the Pentateuch, and to this, and the 
Book of Joshua, I now return. 

As you are doubtless all aware, the Jewish, the Chris¬ 
tian, and the Mohammedan religions, all depend upon the 
authenticity of the Pentateuch. We would naturally 
expect, therefore, that, however widely they might differ 
in regard to other matters, the thelogians of all these 
sects, conscious of a common necessity, would unite in the 
most herculean efforts to make the ignorant masses believe 
that the Pentateuch is authentic. This the theologians 
have done. While mutually, and perhaps justly, charg¬ 
ing one another with being “liars,” “impostors,” “forgers” 
“mouth-pieces of hell,” etc.; while mutually, and “for the 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


21 


love of God,” inflicting upon one another tortures at the 
sight of which the foulest fiends of hell would stand aghast, 
these so-called holy men—these self-constituted teachers 
of the people, and interpreters of God’s Holy "Word— 
these pretended servants of the merciful Jesus—these 
intolerant bigots, their hands reeking with human blood, 
have united, like loving brothers, to deceive the people, 
and to make them believe that the Pentateuch was written 
by a responsible person, and that, consequently, it must be 
the “inspired Word of God.” 

Most of these theologians have assumed that Moses was 
the author of the Pentateuch. They all equally fail, how¬ 
ever, to produce any proof that such was the fact. Almost 
the only argument ever advanced by any of them, in 
support of this assumption, is that most other theologians 
have made the same assumption, and that, without having 
these books written several centuries after his time, no 
man, more suitable than Moses, can be fixed upon as their 
probable author. To thus attempt, however, to prove the 
correctness of an assumption by the extent of that same 
assumption, is, at best, only a pitiful begging of the 
question. As reasonably might we attempt to prove the 
correctness of ignorance upon any subject by calling 
attention to the amount of ignorance that prevails among 
men upon that same subject. A thousand persons might 
all assume that the moon was made of green cheese, and 
yet the numbers of the assumers would not, in the least, 
strengthen the assumption. Through ignorance, more 
than half the people of the world, at the present time, 
assume that the earth is flat and stationary; and yet the 
extent of that ignorance does not, in the least, tend to 
prove the correctness of that assumption. So the extent 
of the ignorance that prevails among men, in regard to the 
authorship of the Pentateuch, does not, in the least, tend 
to prove the correctness of the assumption that Moses is 
entitled to the honor of that authorship. On any other 
subject, an intelligent scliool-boy would be ashamed to 


22 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


resort to tlie sophistry in which theologians indulge on this 
subject. This species of sophistry is especially objection¬ 
able, too, when, as in the present case, it is used by deeply 
interested parties. The common interest of theologians 
in this matter is sufficient to account for their common 
assumption. 

If a mere assumption, even when made by a great 
number of persons, w^ere any proof at all of its own 
correctness, then, on the mere assumption of its own 
advocates, the truth of every religion in the world would 
be fully established. So would be the doctrine of a flat 
and stationary earth, which is supported by a thousand 
times more assumers than is the assumption that Moses 
wrote the Pentateuch. By proving too much, therefore, 
by their sophistry, our theologians ruin their own cause. 

Having thus shown the fallacy of the only argument by 
which theologians have ever attempted to fix the author¬ 
ship of the Pentateuch upon Moses, I will now proceed to 
prove, by far better arguments, that he was not the author 
of those books, and that they were not written at all till 
several centuries after his death. 

In the first place, then, outside of the very books whose 
authenticity we are calling in question, we have no proof 
at all that there ever was any such man as Moses. He 
may have been, and probably was, simply a mythological 
character, such as existed in all ancient nations. Admit¬ 
ting, however, that he was a real personage, I challenge 
my opponents to point out, in the whole Pentateuch, one 
single passage from which we can, with safety, ev6n infer 
that he was its author. I can find no such passage. I 
can, however, find many passages which he could not 
possibly have written, and which, consequently, prove 
beyond all possible contradiction that lie was not the au¬ 
thor of the books of which they constitute an essential part. 

Previous to the invention of papyrus—about one thou¬ 
sand years after the time at which Moses is said to have 
lived—all writings were engraved upon plates of stone, of 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


23 


clay, or of some other hard and solid material. On 
account of the cumbrousness of these materials, and the 
slowness of engraving upon them, no extensive books, like 
the Pentateuch, were then ever written. Even with God’s 
direct personal assistance, Moses is represented as having 
been constantly engaged, for forty days, engraving the ten 
commandments upon two plates of stone. At the same 
rate, to have engraved the whole Pentateuch would have 
required more years than Moses lived; and then, after it 
was engraved, the stone plates containing it would have 
been sufficient to load a large ship, and could not have 
been carried about, by the Hebrews, from one place to 
another, in their wanderings. Besides this, a book en¬ 
graved upon such material could not have been lost, in 
the house of the Lord, as we are elsewhere assured that 
“the book of the Law”—which was evidently the Penta¬ 
teuch, or, at least, a part of it—was lost, many centuries 
afterwards. These same difficulties would also have been 
met by any of the successors of Moses, until after the in¬ 
vention of papyrus. It is certain, then, that the Penta¬ 
teuch was not written by Moses, and that it is a far more 
recent production than our theologians would fain have 
us believe. Who, then, did write it, and what proof have 
we that it is the inspired Word of God? 

In the Book of Genesis, the name of Moses is not men¬ 
tioned at all. In the other four books of the Pentateuch, 
the name is constantly used in the third person. This is 
exactly the way in which another person would have spoken 
of Moses. It is not the way, however, in which Moses 
would have been likely to speak of himself. It is a well- 
known fact that not one writer in a hundred has ever chosen 
to habitually speak of himself in the third person. This 
fact alone, then, renders it at least a hundred times more 
probable that Moses did not write the Pentateuch, than it 
is that he did write it. This, indeed, would be true if, for 
the authorship of these books, the contest lay between 
himself and only one other person. Since, however, contem- 


24 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


porary with Moses, there were probably a hundred men as 
capable of writing books as was he, his chance to have been 
the author of the books in question reduces to only one in 
ten thousand. 

In Num. xii, 3, we read: “Now the man Moses was very 
meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the 
earth.” Would one serious author in ten thousand write 
of himself in this vainglorious manner ? If not, then to 
Moses is left only one chance in a hundred million to have 
been the author of the books in question. Is it safe, then, 
to assume that he was their author ? 

If Moses had written the passage which I have quoted, 
would not his assertion of his own great meekness have 
been a disgusting lie? In thus boasting of his own meek¬ 
ness, would he not have displayed a trait of character ex¬ 
actly the opposite of meekness ? Could he ever, in this 
manner, have proved to his followers that he was, in very 
deed, the meekest man “upon the face of the earth? ,r 
Would he not, on the contrary, by such extravagant self¬ 
adulation, have proved to them that, “ above all the men 
which were upon the face of the earth,” he was the most 
utterly shameless braggart? Would a book written con¬ 
cerning his own exploits, and his own excellence, by so 
vain and so shameless a person, be worthy of our belief? 
What would the companions of Moses have thought of 
him, if he had, in this shameless manner, boasted of his 
own meekness ? Would he have used any better logic than 
was used by a certain bloodthirsty Frenchman, who pro¬ 
posed to prove that he was an extremely kind-hearted man, 
by cutting the throats of all who dared to doubt that he was 
so ? Can any really intelligent person, then, truly believe 
that Moses himself did thus write his own extravagant 
praises ? 

In Ex. xxxviii, 8, we read of “looking-glasses.” But 
what could Moses have known of these, when they were 
not invented till over two thousand years after his death ? 
Can you believe that he wrote this passage ? 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


25 


In Gen. xiv, 14, we read that Abraham chased certain 
enemies “ nnto Dan.” Could a city be thus mentioned by 
name before there was any such city? If not, then the 
Book of Genesis could not have been written till after the 
building of the city of Dan. This would place the writing 
of the book over three hundred years after the death of 
Moses. 

In Judges xviii, 27-29, we learn that the Danites took 
and destroyed a city called Laish, and, in its stead, built a 
new city, which, in honor of the father of their tribe, they 
called Dan. The account of this affair follows, in regular 
historical order, after the account of the death of Samson, 
who, according to Bible chronology, died some three hun¬ 
dred and thirty years after the death of Moses. We know 
that the Book of Genesis could not have been written till 
after this time ; but how long afterwards, we have no cer¬ 
tain means of determining. It may have been many cen¬ 
turies. In any view of the case, it is certain that Moses 
could not have written, and, consequently, did not write 
this book. It is also equally certain that we know nothing 
at all of the character for truthfulness of the unknown 
person who did write it. Can any reasonable person, then, 
pretend that this book has any just claim to be regarded 
as the inspired Word of God? Cannot much better proofs 
be adduced in favor of this pre-eminence for the Koran, or 
the Book of Mormon ? 

In Gen. xxxvi, 31, we read, “ And these are the kings 
that reigned in Edom, before there reigned any king over 
the children of Israel.” This could not have been written 
until after kings had begun to reign over the children of 
Israel. According to Bible chronology, this would put the 
writing of the Book of Genesis several centuries after the 
death of Moses. Here, then, we have another positive 
proof that Moses did not write this book. 

The author of Chronicles, professedly writing after kings 
had begun to reign over the children of Israel, could, and 
did, very properly, speak of these things. Indeed, by ref- 


26 


' THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


erence to 1 Chron. i, 43-54, we learn that he used, not only 
the very passage which I have quoted, but also the next 
twelve verses of the same chapter of Genesis. Now it is 
evident that these twelve verses, appearing thus in both 
Genesis and Chronicles, must either have been written in 
both books by the same person, or else have been copied 
by some other person, from the book in which they first 
appeared, into that which appeared at a later date. It is 
quite probable that both books were written by the same 
person—Genesis as an ancient, and Chronicles as a more 
modern, history of the Hebrews. Be all this as it may, 
however, it is certain that the verses in question could not 
have been written in either of these books until after kings 
had begun to reign over the children of Israel, some four 
hundred years after the death of Moses. 

In Gen. xii, 6, we read, “ And the Canaanite was then in 
the land.” This must have been written after the Canaan- 
ite had ceased to be “in the land.” On any other hypoth¬ 
esis, the language would be grossly absurd. As well 
might we, in speaking of some recent event, say that, at 
the time it occurred, the Mississippi River flowed into the 
Gulf of Mexico. You can all perceive that this language 
would be extremely absurd, if used while the Mississippi 
continues to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. Should the 
course of the Mississippi ever be so changed, however, that 
it ceased to flow into the Gulf of Mexico, then an author, 
speaking of events that occurred previous to that change, 
could very properly say that the Mississippi then flowed 
into the Gulf of Mexico. So of the language quoted from 
Genesis. It could not have been used till the Canaanite 
had ceased to be in the land. According to the Bible ac¬ 
count, however, the Canaanite did not cease to be in the 
land until the time of David. This again places the writ¬ 
ing of the book of Genesis several centuries after the death 
of Moses, and, by so doing, proves that he was not its 
author. Who, then, did write this book, and what do we 
know of that writer’s character for veracity and intelligence ? 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


27 


In Ex. xvi, 35, we read, “ And the children of Israel did 
eat manna forty years, until they came to a land inhabited; 
they did eat manna until they came into the borders of the 
land of Canaan.” This language could not have been writ¬ 
ten until after the children of Israel had come into the bor¬ 
ders of the land of Canaan, and after they had ceased to 
eat manna. From Josh, v, 12, however, we learn that these 
events did not occur until some time after the death of Moses. 
In this passage, then, we have proof positive that Moses did 
not write the Book of Exodus. Will the champions of the 
Bible, therefore, be so kind as to inform us who did write 
it, and what they know of his character for veracity ? 

In Num. xv, 32, we read, “ And while the children of Is¬ 
rael were in the wilderness, they found a man that gathered 
sticks upon the Sabbath day.” This language could not 
have been written until after the children of Israel had 
ceased to be “in the wilderness.” Moses, therefore, who 
died while the children of Israel were still in the wilder¬ 
ness, could not possibly have been the author of Numbers, 
of which this passage constitutes an essential part. Who, 
then, did write it ? 

In Deut. i, 1-5, the author, in quite a dramatic style, in¬ 
troduces Moses upon the rostrum, and has him deliver sev¬ 
eral fearfully long orations. These orations are given in 
full, and constitute by far the greater portion of the whole 
book. Between these orations, the author puts in a few 
words of his own, and then has Moses lead off again. After 
the last of these orations is delivered, Moses is made to 
conclude his role, in this grand farce, by going up and dy¬ 
ing all alone on the summit of Mount Pisgali. After de- 
scribing the death, the burial, and the funeral of Moses, 
the author closes his book as follows : “ And there arose 
not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the 
Lord knew face to face, in all the signs and the wonders 
which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to 
Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and 
in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which 


28 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Moses showed in the sight of all Israel.” Since Moses 
could not himself have thus described his own death, his 
own burial, his own funeral, etc., and since he could not 
himself have delivered this extravagant post-mortem eulogy 
upon his own character, he could not possibly have been 
himself the author of the book of which the descriptions 
of these events constitute, as they do, an essential part. 

From the language, “ There arose not a prophet since in 
Israel,” w r e learn that a long period of time had elapsed, 
after the death of Moses, before the book w r as WTitten in 
which this language occurs. During that long period, 
many other prophets had arisen in Israel, and had distin¬ 
guished themselves, but none of them had been “ like unto 
Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.” If, at the time 
this language w r as used, a sufficiently long period after the 
death of Moses had not yet elapsed in which for many 
prophets to arise, and to prove themselves, the language in 
question w r ould be grossly absurd. 

These are only a few of the many incontrovertible evi¬ 
dences which I could adduce, to prove that Moses could 
not have been the author of the Pentateuch, and that it 
could not have been written till several centuries after his 
death. The proofs that I have given, however, must suf¬ 
fice. Indeed, they are sufficient to convince all but bigots 
and fools, and these could not be convinced by any amount 
of testimony. 

In my notice of the Book of Joshua, I must be very 
brief. Most theologians have assumed that it was written 
by its own principal hero, Joshua himself. This assump¬ 
tion, however, as I shall now proceed to prove, is totally 
unwarrantable by the facts. 

In the first place, then, there is not, in the whole book, 
a single passage that seems, in the least degree, to point 
to Joshua as its author. On the other hand, there are 
many passages in it which could not possibly have been 
written by Joshua. These passages contain the names of 
persons, places, and things, that did not exist, and men- 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


29 


tions events tliat did not occur until after tlie death of 
Joshua. For want of time, I can notice only a few of 
these passages. 

In Josh, xv, 63, we read, “ The Jebusites dwell with the 
children of Judah at Jerusalem unto this day.” Since the 
children of Judah did not dwell at Jerusalem until the 
time of David, it is evident that the book that contains 
this passage could not have been written before the time 
of David. This would put the writing of the book several 
hundred years after the death of Joshua. Indeed, the pe¬ 
culiar force of the expression, “unto this day,” proves 
that, at the time the book was written, a long time 
had elapsed since the children of Judali had taken Jerusa¬ 
lem, and had formed a portion of its inhabitants. The ex¬ 
pression, “unto this day,” is used, not with reference to 
years, but to ages. This places the writing of the book a 
long time after the time of David. 

In Josh, xxiv, 29-31, we read: “ And it came to pass after 
these things, that Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of 
the Lord, died, being a hundred and ten years old. And 
they buried him in the border of his inheritance in Tim- 
nath Serah, which is in Mount Ephraim, on the north side 
of the hill of Gaasli. And Israel served the Lord all the 
days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders that over¬ 
lived Joshua.” Since Joshua could not have written this 
account of his own death and burial, he evidently could 
not have been the author of the book of which this account 
forms an essential part. Indeed, since “ all the elders that 
overlived Joshua” had passed away before the book was 
written, it is evident that the writing of it was not done 
for many years after the death of Joshua. When, and by 
whom, then, was it written ? 

Besides these, and many other similar passages, which 
Joshua could not have written, there are many other pas¬ 
sages to be found in the book, which I do not think that 
he would have written. These are such as the following: 
“ So the Lord was with Joshua, and his fame was noised 


30 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


throughout all the country.” “ And there was no day like 
that before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the 
voice of a man.” Dare you say that Joshua was so shame¬ 
less a braggart as to use such language concerning him¬ 
self ? If not, and if you dare not claim that he described 
his own death and burial, and the conduct of the children 
of Israel during “ all the days of the elders that overlived ” 
him, how can you have the face to claim that he was the 
author of the book that bears his name ? 

Since we know nothing of the character for veracity of 
either the author of the Pentateuch, or of the author of 
the book of Joshua, we cannot know anything of the au¬ 
thenticity of either of these writings. To render this mat¬ 
ter still worse, we have not a particle of evidence that 
there is now remaining, in these books, a single sentence 
as it was originally written by the unknown authors. On 
the other hand, as I shall show in my next lecture, we 
have abundance of evidence that these books have reached 
us through a thousand devious channels, through which it 
would be impossible for anything to reach us uncorrupted, 
no matter how pure it may have been in its original 
form. It is very probable that these books, as we now 
have them, are mere forgeries intended to deceive the peo¬ 
ple, and strengthen the cause of priestcraft. Should this 
prove to be, indeed, their true character, will we be 
damned if we do not believe them ? Are my opponents 
absolutely certain that they may not be damned for believ¬ 
ing and for ascribing to God, writings of so doubtful au¬ 
thenticity ? For my own part, I believe that if anybody is 
to be damned, these intolerant bigots are the very parties 
that will have to undergo that interesting operation. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


31 


LECTURE SECOND. 

THE OLD TESTAMENT.—(CONCLUDED). 

In 2 Cliron. xxxiv, 14, 15, 18, 19, 30, we read: “And 
when they brought out the money that was brought into 
the house of the Lord, Hilkiah, the priest, found a book of 
the law of the Lord given by Moses. And Hilkiah an¬ 
swered and said to Shaphan the scribe, I have found the 
book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah 
delivered the book to Shaphan. Then Shaphan the scribe 
told the king, saying, Hilkiah the priest hath given me a 
book. And Shaphan read it before the king. And it 
came to pass, when the king had heard the words of the 
law, that he rent his clothes. And the king went up into 
the house of the Lord, and all the men of Judah, and the 
inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the Levites, 
and all the people, great and small. And he read in their 
ears all the words of the book of the covenant that was 
found in the house of the Lord.” 

Bible critics generally agree that “the book of the law,” 
mentioned here, was the Pentateuch, or so much of it at 
least as was in existence at the time to which these 
extracts refer. That it was only a very small portion of 
the Pentateuch, as we now have it, is evident from the 
fact that the king, at a single reading, repeated “all the 
words” of it to the vast assemblage of people who came 
together to hear it. Be this as it may, however, we learn, 
from these extracts, that all there then was of the Word of 
God—of the only guide to salvation—had been carelessly 
thrown about and lost, by the very people whom God, in 
his infinite wisdom, had chosen to be its special custo¬ 
dians. We also learn, from these same extracts, that it 
had been lost |or a great length of time—for so great a 


i 


32 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

length of time that the whole people, king, priests, Levites, 
and all, had entirely forgotten even the tradition of its 
former existence among them, and of the laws and the 
commandments which it contained. Indeed, we learn that 
it had been lost for so vast a nmmber of years, or of ages, 
that, during its absence from among them, the people had 
entirely changed those most abiding of all institutions, 
their modes, their customs, their form of worship, and 
their gods. 

Before this “book of the law” was lost, these modes, 
customs, etc., had all been in accordance with its pro¬ 
visions. When this was again found, however, as above 
related, all these things were found to be so entirely 
changed, so utterly at variance with the teachings of the 
book, that, upon hearing it read, the king, in great dismay, 
“rent his clothes”—g(3od clothes, too, no doubt—and then 
immediately sent to “inquire of the Lord concerning the 
words of the book,” and concerning the “curses” which 
he took it for granted that the Lord, in his fearful wrath, 
would be sure to “pour out upon ” the whole land, because, 
during the immense time they were destitute of this pre¬ 
cious book, the people, through no fault of their own, how¬ 
ever, had ignorantly neglected to observe its provisions. 
Besides this, “the king, and all the men of Judah, and 
the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and the priests, and the 
Levites, and all the people, great and small,” men, women, 
and children, were so intensely excited, so utterly amazed, 
so fearfully alarmed, at the finding of this wonderful book, 
that, in order to hear it read, they all left their homes 
tenantless, and, by a common, a mighty, impulse, rushed 
in, from all directions, from far and near, “into the house 
of the Lord.” And the king “read in their ears all the 
words of the book.” Had there existed, among the people, 
even a tradition of such a book, and of its teachings, do 
you believe that the pretended finding of it, on this 
occasion, could possibly have created so unparalleled a 
commotion ? This pretended finding of the book, then, is 


THE OLf) TESTAMENT. 


33 


a matter of great importance, and demands a correspond¬ 
ingly critical investigation. 

From the fact that upon hearing the book read, the 
king so promptly sent to “inquire of the Lord concerning” 
it, we learn that the Lord could be inquired of, at pleasure, 
concerning such things. If, then, previous to that time, 
this book had ever existed, and if any record, or even any 
tradition, of its former existence remained among the 
Hebrews, why did not Hilkiah, or the king, or some other 
godly person, inquire of the Lord concerning it, and as¬ 
certain where it might be found? By simply making this 
very natural and very proper inquiry, these servants of 
the Lord—these guardians of religion—would have pre¬ 
vented the peojDle from falling into error, through igno¬ 
rance, and would thereby have rendered it entirely un¬ 
necessary for the king to tear his clothes, or for the Lord 
to “pour out” his “wrath” upon tlio people, and to bring 
upon the land “even all the curses that are written in the 
book.” Will my opponents, then, be so kind as to inform 
us why so simple and so important an inquiry was never 
made? Would it not have been just as easy to “inquire 
of the Lord,” concerning this book, before it was found, 
as it was to inquire of him afterwards? And why did not 
your infinitely w r ise, your infinitely good and merciful, 
God, even without being inquired of, inform the people 
where this precious book might be found? Had he also 
forgotten that there ever was any such book? He saw 
that, for want of the book, the people w r ere erring through 
ignorance; and yet, although he could so easily have 
given it, he withheld from them all knowledge of the 
existence of the book, and of the curses contained therein. 
For being destitute of the knowledge which he alone could 
have given them, but which he thus withheld from them, 
he poured out his wrath and his curses upon them. Can 
my opponents reconcile this conduct with the -character 
for justice and mercy which they ascribe to God? 

After the book, by mere accident, had been found ; after 


1 


34 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

liis information on the subject of the book could be of no¬ 
possible service to the people, then, and not till then, does 
God seem to have been pleased to commune with them in re¬ 
gard to it. So after he had irrevocably doomed the people 
to suffer his wrath and his curses, he very graciously 
informed them that he had thus doomed them, that he 
certainly would “pour out” his wrath upon them, and that 
he would do this because they had not observed certain 
laws and ceremonies, of the existence and the nature of 
which, he very well knew, they had never had any means 
of knowing. 

It is said that, as a refinement of cruelty, one of the 
most bloody tyrants of Rome was wont to write edicts and. 
have them posted in some high and inaccessible place in 
which it was impossible for them to be read by the people, 
and then to put to death such persons as he chose, because 
they had not observed these unknown, and, to them, un¬ 
knowable edicts. This was certainly a detestable form of 
cruelty, and yet it was no worse than that which the Bible 
represents the Christian’s God with having practiced on 
the occasion under consideration What could be more 
blasphemous than are such representations of God? 

Besides this, in 2 Kings xxiii, 2, we read: “And the 
king went up into the house of the Lord, and all the men 
of Judah and all the inhabitants of Jerusalem with him,, 
and the priests, and the prophets, and all the people, both 
small and great: and he read in their ears all the words- 
of the book of the covenant which was found in the house 
of the Lord.” This is certainly very plain language, and, 
of necessity, it is bound to be either true or false. If you 
admit that it is false, then you are bound to admit, also, 
that the whole story, of which it forms an essential part, 
is equally false. You are bound still further to admit that 
the entire two books, 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles, of each of 
which this story forms an essential part, are, of necessity, 
totally unworthy of belief. If you make all these ad¬ 
missions, then the story becomes entirely unworthy of 




THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


35 


further notice. If however, on the other hand, you claim 
that this language is true, then we have a right to ask you 
the following simple questions: How many people were 
there, at that time, “both small and great,” in all Jeru¬ 
salem^ and Judea? How large was the house of the Lord, 
in which they all assembled ? and how large was the book, 
all the words of which the king read in the ears of all 
those people? These are fair questions. "Will you please 
answer them? 

According to the best historical light that we have on 
the subject, the entire population of Jerusalem and Judea, 
at the time of which we are speaking, could not have 
been less than four millions. Some writers estimate 
it at seven millions. The true number was probably 
about five millions. This is about the average of the 
estimates made by various historians and Bible critics. 
The population consisted of the entire tribes of Judah and 
Benjamin, considerable portions of each of the other ten 
tribes of Israel, and large numbers of Edomites and 
Jebusites who dwelt among the children of Israel. Long 
previous to this time, the tribe of Judah alone, according 
to the Bible account, contained “five hundred thousand 
valiant men that drew the sword.” The “valiant men that 
drew the sword ” could not have composed more than one- 
fifth of the entire population of that tribe. Putting them 
at one-fifth, we have, for the tribe of Judah, at least two 
million five hundred thousand inhabitants, in the time of 
David, when the “men who drew the sword” were num¬ 
bered ; and between that time, and the time of which we 
are speaking, their numbers could not have grown less- 
Indeed, the country, during that period, having been 
generally in a prosperous condition, the number of inhabi¬ 
tants had, doubtless, greatly increased. At any rate, this 
powerful tribe, added to the tribe of Benjamin, the parts 
of the other ten tribes, the Edomites, and the Jebusites, 
must have contained a population of at least four millions- 
This would be equal to the entire population of London, 


36 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


at the present time, and to four times the entire popula¬ 
tion qf the City of New York. And yet, on pain of eternal 
damnation—whatever that may be—we are required to 
implicitly believe that “all” of this immense body of 
“people, both small and great, went up into the house of 
the Lord,” all at one time, to hear the reading of the 
wonderful book which Hilkiali, the priest, pietended that 
he had found. Rather than undergo that doubtful opera¬ 
tion called damnation, let us try to believe this monstrous 
story. For standing-room, four millions of people would 
require several hundred acres of ground. Let us see, then 
whether we can find sufficient standing-room for them in 
“the house of the Lord.” 

From the Bible account of this house, it was sixty cubits 
in length, twenty cubits in width, and thirty cubits in 
height. Allowing the cubit to have contained twenty-two 
inches—the most that has ever been claimed for it—we 
have that house one hundred and ten feet in length, 
thirty-six and two-thirds feet in width, and fifty-five feet 
in height. No one, I suppose, at the present day, will 
claim that, for a public building, this was a very large 
house. With the height of the house we have nothing to 
do. We can not suppose that the people were piled upon 
one another, or that, during the reading of the book in 
question, they even occupied different floors. In order to 
hear the reading, they must, of necessity, have all occu¬ 
pied the same floor. But how many could find standing- 
room upon that floor? Multiplying its length by its 
breadth, we have for its utmost area four thousand thirty- 
three and one-third square feet. In this calculation, we 
have made no deductions for the space occupied by the 
walls, by the pillars, by the. altar, and by the various 
rooms wdiich we are informed were partitioned off for 
special purposes. Making the necessary deductions for 
these, our available standing-room is reduced to less than 
three thousand square feet. Putting it at three thousand 
.square feet, however, we have room for only two thousand 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


37 


persons, or one two-thousandth part of all. the people who 
are said to have assembled, on that occasion, in that 
house. In order to find room for them all, we must crowd 
at least one thousand three hundred and thirty-three 
persons on each square foot, or ten persons on each square 
inch. 

It will not do to say that, on the occasion in question, 
only a few persons—only one out of every two thousand, 
“wentup into the house of the Lord.” To say this, would 
be simply to give the lie to the author of the story, who 
positively declares that “all the people, both small and great” 
went up! If, as you claimed at the outset, the author’s lan¬ 
guage be true, it is bound to be true as it now reads, and 
not as you, for obvious reasons, would gladly have it read. 
You must either accept it or reject it, as it now stands. 
If it be true, it needs no changing, no doctoring. If it be 
false, it could not be made true by any amount of changing 
or doctoring. 

As I have already said, four million people, for stand¬ 
ing-room, would require several hundred acres of ground. 
Admitting, then, that they did manage, somehow, to 
“'all” go “up into the house of the Lord,” how did the 
king manage to read “ in their ears all the words of the 
book ” in question ? Many of the people must have been 
more than half a mile distant from the reader. Unless 
several hundred thousand telejohones were in operation on 
that occasion, how did he, from so great a distance, manage 
to “read in their ears?” Besides this, of how large a 
book, could he, on that single occasion, have “ read all the 
words,” and read them, too, in tones sufficiently loud to 
be heard by so vast an audience ? He certainly could not 
have read, and “ all the people, both small and great,” cer¬ 
tainly could not have stood to hear, any considerable por¬ 
tion of the Pentateuch, as we now have it. Since, then, 
there was not, at that time, any other “ book of the law,” 
and since the book wdiich, on that single occasion, he read 
entirely through, to an immense audience, could not, at 


i 


38 # THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

most, have contained more than a dozen ordinary chapters, 
we learn that by far the greater portion of the Pentateuch 
has been manufactured and added since that time. Your 
priests say that I will be damned if I do not believe that 
“ the king and all the men of Judah, and all the inhabit¬ 
ants of Jerusalem with him, and the priests, and the Le- 
vites, and the prophets, and all the people, both small and 
great,” went up, all on one occasion, into a hall that could 
not possibly contain more than three thousand persons. 
For my own part, however, I am free to say that—I’ll be 

d-d if I do believe this monstrous story, iyhy, the 

ears alone, of all these people, if they had been cut off, 
would have prettv well filled that “house of the Lord.” 

By reading the whole chapter of which the foregoing 
extracts form a part, we learn that, for many years, Josiah, 
the king of Judah, had been most zealously engaged in the 
pious work of destroying the temples of the other gods, of 
cutting down their sacred groves, of breaking to pieces 
their images, of digging up and burning the bones of their 
deceased worshipers, of burning their living priests as 
sacrifices to his own God upon altars (see 2 Kings, xxiii, 
20), and, in various other ways, of doing “ that which was 
right in the sight of the Lord.” We also learn, however, 
that, notwithstanding all this his godly zeal, notwithstand¬ 
ing he had pleased God in all these things, this pious 
king had, nevertheless, utterly failed to observe the laws 
and the commandments which were containeddn the book 
that Hilkiah pretended to have found. And why had the 
king thus failed? For the excellent reason that, previous 
to the pretended finding of this book, he was totally igno¬ 
rant of the laws, etc., which it contained. Had he known 
those laws, etc., he certainly would have observed them. 
So soon as he did know them, he did observe them. Upon 
hearing the book read, he “ rent his clothes ” in dismay, 
“for,” said he, “great is the wrath of the Lord that is 
poured out upon us, because our fathers have not kept the 
word of the Lord, to do after all that is written in this 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


39 


book.” Until he had heard the book read, he did not 
know that his fathers had not done according to all that 
was “ written in the book.” Neither did he know that 
“ the wrath of the Lord ” was about to be “ poured out 
upon” himself and his people because of the shortcomings 
of their fathers. So soon, however, as he had heard the 
book read, he “ stood in his place and made a covenant 
before the Lord, to walk after the Lord, and to keep his 
commandments, and his testimonies, and his statutes, with 
all his heart, and with all his soul, to perform the words 
of the covenant which are written in this book. And he 
•caused all that were present in Jerusalem and Benjamin 
to stand to it.” 

From all these things it must be evident that, until they 
had heard this book read, both the king and the people 
were utterly ignorant, not only of its contents, but, also, of 
its previous existence, if, indeed, it had ever had any pre¬ 
vious existence. How are we to account for this utter and 
general ignorance in regard to so important a book ? If 
that book had ever been in use among the people—if they 
had ever been governed by the laws that it contained, 
would not tradition, even after the book was lost, have 
preserved the memory of its existence and of the laws, etc., 
which it contained ? Is it not evident, then, that the book 
had never before been in use among the people ? Is it not 
evident, either that this whole story is a pure fabrication 
of a later date, or that the book was a forgery which Hil- 
kiali got up for the purpose of imposing on the people, 
and which, for obvious reasons, he pretended to have 
found? In either case, is not the Bible condemned? In¬ 
deed, admitting that Hilkiah did actually find such a book, 
how could he know that it was the “ book of the law of 
the Lord given by Moses,” when, as we have seen, all 
knowledge, all tradition, of such a book, had been lost? 
How was Hilkiah to know that some other priest had not 
made the book, and placed it in “ the house of the Lord,” 
on purpose to have it found ? Does not history give an 


40 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


account of a great number of similar book-finding imposi¬ 
tions ? 

For my own part, I incline to the belief tliat the en¬ 
tire story is a pure fiction of a later date—that no such 
finding, or pretended finding, of a book ever occurred, I 
will therefore first give my reasons for inclining to this be¬ 
lief. I will then return, and, upon the hypothesis that 
this pretended book-finding did occur, I will try Hilkiah 
on a charge of forgery and imposture. I will also try Jo- 
siali on a charge of being either the willing accomplice, or 
the miserable dupe, of this forger and impostor. 

Only a very few years after this pretended finding of 
“ the book of the law,” the Jews were nearly all carried 
away to Babylon, where they remained in captivity for 
about eighty years. This is the Bible account of the 
affair, and, to some extent, this account seems to be corrob¬ 
orated by profane history. Most of these Jews seem, dur¬ 
ing their long captivity, to have lost their own nationality, 
and to have never returned to their own country. Of 
those who did return, and from whom the modern Jews 
are decended, the greater portion seem to have lost their 
own language, their own customs, and even their own 
religion, and to have adopted the language, the customs, 
and the religion of their masters, the Babylonians. Indeed, 
the Jew’s, having learned many useful arts, sciences, and 
religious doctrines of their more enlightened masters, 
seem never again to have become the ignorant and bar¬ 
barous people that they had been before their long cap¬ 
tivity. At the time of their return to Judea, they w r ere so 
thoroughly Chaldeanized that, in order to understand their 
modes, customs, etc., after that time, we have simply to 
understand the modes, customs, etc., of the Chaldeans 
themselves. This fact -is freely admitted by every one 
who is at all well acquainted with the respective histories 
of these two nations. For proofs, therefore, I will simply, 
refer you to Brown’s “Dictionary of the Bible,” to Bishop 
Marsh’s “Lectures,” and to the eighth chapter of the “Book 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


41 


of Nehemiah.” From these sources, you will learn that, 
when reading in Hebrew to the people, the priests were 
under the necessity of interpreting their readings, in order 
to make the people understand them. 

According to the testimony of their own historians, as 
well as that of many Christian writers, the Jews, during 
this same period, entirely lost most, if not all, of their 
sacred books and other writings. All of these are ad¬ 
mitted to have been burned, or otherwise totally destroyed. 
Whatever writings they may have had, therefore, imme¬ 
diately after their return to Judea, must have been very 
recent productions, prepared with special reference to the 
necessities of the returning captives. 

As quoted by Dupin, St. Eucliarius says : “ It is evident 
why we have not remaining the books which the Holy 
Scriptures approve of, because Judea, having been ravaged 
by the Chaldeans, and the ancient bibliotheque being 
burnt, there remaining only a small number of the books 
which at present make up the Holy Scriptures, and which 
were collected and re-established by the care of Ezra.” 
From this, it appears that “ only a small number of 
the books which the Holy Scriptures approve of,” are to 
be found in the Bible, as w r e now have it, that the balance 
have been manufactured, by unknown parties, since the 
Babylonish Captivity, and that by far the greater portion 
of “God’s Holy Word”—of our only guide to salvation—is 
irretrievably lost. Our Bible being thus made up of “only 
a few books” of God’s word, and many books of man’s 
word, what are we to do with it? We do not know which 
books are the Word of God, and which are the word of 
man. Must we believe them all or be damned? Can the 
rejection of man’s word subject us to damnation? Be this 
as it may, your priests teach us that a failure to believe 
any portion of God’s word certainly will subject us to 
eternal damnation. But the greater portion of God’s word 
being lost, we all, of necessity, fail to believe that portion. 
And are we all, on that account, to be damned? If not— 


42 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


if believing only the small portion of God’s word that is 
left, is sufficient to insure salvation, would the believing 
of a still less portion be equally sufficient? And would it 
not be well to lose nearly all the balance of God’s Word, 
so that, having very little to believe, we would have com¬ 
paratively little trouble in attaining salvation? If by 
believing only the small portion of God’s Word which they 
have, and the still smaller portion of it which they ever 
read, my Christian friends are enabled to enter, with ease, 
through the gates of pearl, into the New Jerusalem, may 
it not be that poor Infidels, like myself, by believing a still 
smaller portion, may manage to squeeze in also, through 
those same beautiful gates? Indeed, is it certain that, in 
order to reach heaven, it is necessary to believe any por¬ 
tion of the so-called Holy Scripture ? If, as is here ad¬ 
mitted, the greater portion of the Holy Scriptures, without 
any detriment to the cause of salvation, have been totally 
lost, or rejected, why, I again ask, may not the remaining 
smaller portion, with equal impunity, be lost or rejected, 
in the same way? But I am digressing; I was to explain 
why I incline to the belief that the whole story of the 
finding of a book by Hilkiah Avas a pure fabrication of a 
later date. 

As quoted by Simon, St. Chrysostom says: “ The Jews 
having been at sometimes careless, and at others profane, 
they suffered some of the sacred books to be lost through 
their carelessness, and have burnt and destroyed others.” 
From this, it appears that the Chaldeans were not the only 
ones who labored to rid the world of the so-called Word 
of God. It appears that the Jews themselves, appointed 
though they had been by an infinitely wise God, to be its 
sole custodians, joined with their pagan neighbors in the 
work of burning and otherwise destroying the books which 
they had'been thus specially appointed to preserve. Is it 
likely, then, that, under these circumstances, any of the 
books in question survived ? 

Infinitely wise, indeed, your God must have been to 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


43 


choose such a people as the Jews are here represented as 
having been to be the custodians of his Holy Word; to 
make the salvation or the damnation of the whole world 
depend upon the accidental losing or finding of the books 
containing this Word, by so careless a people, or upon its 
preservation or destruction by so profane a people! In 
thus acting, did he not make salvation almost an impossi¬ 
bility? When he intrusted these careless and profane 
Jews w T itli his Holy Word, did he, or did he not, know 
what they would do with it? If he did not know T , could 
he have been omniscient, as you represent him to be? If 
he did know, and then, with this knowledge before him, 
proceeded to appoint them, did he not intend that they 
should do just what they did? Did he not intend that the 
greater part, if not all, of his Holy Word—of our only 
guide to salvation—should be totally lost or destroyed, 
and never recovered? Did he not intend that the preser¬ 
vation of the remaining part—if, indeed, any part did 
remain—should depend on many mere accidents? Did he 
not intend to make our damnation almost an absolute cer¬ 
tainty? And can such a being be infinite in wisdom, in 
goodness, and in mercy? 

Whether God did, or did not, know what the Jews 
Tvould do with the books which he intrusted to their care, 
and whether he did, or did not, intend that they should 
do with them just what they did, I leave for our priests to 
determine. I leave them also to determine whether he 
did, or did not, succeed in carrying out his own pro¬ 
gramme in regard to these books. If he did succeed, was 
not the burning and the losing of these books a part of 
that successfully carried out programme ? If he did not 
succeed, why did he fail? Which of the elements of suc¬ 
cess did he lack, the knowledge, the will, or the power? 
And may not his present plan of salvation prove to be an 
equally total failure? Are my Christian friends abso¬ 
lutely certain that he will succeed in the difficult task of 
gathering them into heaven? Are they also absolutely 


44 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


sure that lie will succeed in keeping Mohammedans, Jews, 
pagans, and Infidels out of heaven? 

Be all these things as they may, however, it is admit¬ 
ted, on all hands, that, during the Babylonish Captivity, 
the sacred books of the Jews were generally, if not uni¬ 
versally, destroyed, and thus, for a time at least, totally 
lost. It is also admitted that many of these books— 
equally as authentic as any that we now have—were never 
recovered. Among these maybe nameed the “Book of 
Jaslier,” the “ Book of the Wars of the Lord,” the “ Book 
of Nathan the Prophet,” and the “ Book of Gad the Seer.” 
Was God willing that all these books should be lost, or 
was he unable to preserve them? 

In 2 Esdras xiv, 20-22, we read: “ Behold, Lord, I will 
go, as thou hast commanded me, and reprove the people 
which are present; but they that shall be born afterward, 
who shall admonish them? thus the world is set in 
darkness, and they that dwell therein are without light. 
For thy law is burnt, therefore no man knoweth the 
things that are done of thee, or the works that shall 
begin. But if I have found grace before thee, send the 
Holy Ghost into me, and I shall write all that hath been 
done in the world since the beginning, which were written 
in thy law that men may find thy path, and that they 
which will live in the latter days may live.” From the 
first two verses of these extracts, it clearly appears that 
all the books had been burnt which contained the “ law,” 
and which contained an account of “ all that hath been 
done in the world since the beginning.” It appears that 
the world was entirely “ set in darkness;” that they that 
dwelt therein were entirely “ without light; ” that of God’s^ 
Word all was lost. From the remaining verse we learn 
that Esdras, or Ezra, as he is usually called, lamenting the 
sad condition of “ the world, set in darkness,” of the peo¬ 
ple, “without light,” proposed, with God’s assistance, to 
dissipate the darkness in which the world was set, and to 
restore the lost light to men, by writing, de novo, all that 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


45 


had been written in the books that had been burnt. 
From the balance of the chapter we learn that he actually 
did carry out this proposition; that, professing to act 
under God’s instructions, he employed five skillful scribes 
who, in forty days of constant writing, completed this 
great work in two hundred and four books, Ezra himself 
dictating the contents of them all. 

In order to thus furnish, within forty days, the mate¬ 
rial with which to fill these two hundred and four books, 
Ezra must, of necessity, have been wonderfully inspired, 
or else must have drawn largely upon tradition, or upon 
his own imagination. The assumption of his inspiration, 
being a thing unreasonable in itself, and being entirely 
unsupported by proof, will hardly be accepted by any of 
those wdio make reason, science, and common sense their 
guides. The material for those books, therefore, must 
have been drawn principally, if not entirely, either from 
tradition or imagination, or from both. Of this material, 
thus obtained, the story of the finding of “ the book of 
the law” by Ililkiah, after it had been lost on a former 
occasion, evidently formed a part. At any rate, there is 
nothing in the Bible to show that this story was ever told, 
until it was told by Ezra; and, since his two hundred and 
four books evidently contained a hundred times as much 
matter as did the one little “book of the law,” which 
Josiali read entirely through at a single reading to an im¬ 
mense audience, it is undeniable that at least ninety-nine 
per cent of their contents were new material—material 
which had never been contained in “ the book of the law,” 
of which he claimed that his books were a reproduction. 
This gives us ninety-nine chances in a hundred that the 
story in question was a pure fabrication of Ezra’s, founded, 
at best, on mere tradition. 

You may object, however, that you do not accept as 
canonical the Book of Esdras, from which I have been 
quoting. In reply to this, I will say that, although you 
do not accept it, the majority of the Jews and the Chris- 


46 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tians of the world do accept it; and this is as much as can 
be said of any one book in the whole Bible; not a single 
book being universally accepted, by both Jews and Chris¬ 
tians, or even by Christians alone, as either authentic 
or canonical. Besides this, even those Christian writers 
who do not recognize the canonicity of the book in 
question, nevertheless admit that it contains much correct 
and valuable information, and that it is entitled to a much 
higher degree of credit than are the writings of any 
purely profane historians. Be all this as it may, however, 
it is now universally admitted that the particular informa¬ 
tion wdiicli I have drawn from this book'is correct; that, 
during the Babylonish Captivity, the original books, 
whether many or few, of the Holy Scriptures, were gener¬ 
ally if not universally .destroyed; and that what we now 
have of them were reproduced by Ezra the scribe. Admit¬ 
ting, then, that none of the books which now compose the 
Old Testament were written after Ezra’s time, and that, 
through a thousand doubtful channels, they have all 
reached our own time without corruption, they still rest 
upon no higher authority than the entirely unsupported 
word of their author—their pretended reproducer, that 
deeply interested party, Ezra the scribe. How are we to 
know, then, that, in this work, he was inspired of God? 
His own unsupported word to that effect is not sufficient, 
since every religious impostor sets up the very same claim 
for himself when producing his so-called sacred books. 
How are we to know that Ezra correctly reproduced any 
portion of the books that had been burnt? How was 
even Ezra himself to know that his books w*ere correct 
reproductions of books which he had never seen, and of 
whose contents he had no knowledge ? When professedly 
describing lopg-past and long-forgotten events, how was 
he to know whether his ideas concerning them were the 
result of inspiration or of imagination? Who can ansAver 
these fair questions ? 

Admitting, liowe\ r er, that Ezra did correctly reproduce 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


47 


the lost Scriptures in question, he did so in two hundred 
and four books; and since we have less than one-fifth of 
that number now remaining, we cannot claim to be in 
possession of more than one-fifth of the real Bible—of 
man’s only guide to salvation. Can we be fully saved 
without believing the other four-fifths? Can one-fifth 
lead us to more than one-fifth of that which constitutes 
salvation? If it can—if, without at all injuring our 
chances for heaven, we can dispense with four-fifths of 
God’s word—why may we not, with equal impunity, 
dispense with the one-fifth that remains? If the loss of 
God’s Word is no misfortune, can its possession be of any 
benefit ? 

As to what became of the greater portion of the books 
written by dictation of Ezra, we do not certainly know. 
So far as history can enable us to know anything, however, 
of times so remote, we do know that the books of the Old 
Testament were never collected into a single book or Bible, 
till the time of the Maccabees, about two hundred years 
after Ezra, and as many before Christ. Previous to that 
time, all of these books, as well as all of the other so- 
called sacred books of the Jews, seem to have been 
scattered about, liable, at any time, to be lost or destroyed, 
as such books were wont to be in those days, or corrupted, 
beyond all recognition, by designing priests, incompetent 
copyists, etc. And what was the natural, the inevitable 
result of this condition of things? More than four-fifths 
of these Ezraic books are admitted to have been irre¬ 
coverably lost; and the purity of the balance is admitted 
to be extremely doubtful. 

During the two hundred years, or more, that inter¬ 
vened between the time of Ezra and the time of the com¬ 
pilation of the Bible, there appeared among the people a 
great number of new books. Some of these books seem 
to have been from the pens of quite able writers, and 
though many of them conflicted with the Ezraic books, 
and with one another, the author of each claimed to have 


48 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


written it under inspiration, and gave just as good proof 
of liis inspiration as Ezra gave of his. These facts are 
freely admitted by all those who are well posted in the 
history of the Jews of that time. From this vast number 
of books, then, all claiming to be the Word of God, 
but most of them undeniably spurious, the Sanhedrim 
who met to compile the Bible, had to make their selec¬ 
tions. This they did in business-like manner, voting one 
book to be authentic and canonical, another to be a 
base forgery, without going to the trouble of even claim¬ 
ing that they were aided in this work by that wonderfully 
convenient priestly invention, the “Holy Ghost.” 

And now, let me ask, what proof have you that any 
of the books placed before that Sanhedrim were inspired 
of God? You know that you can produce no proof at 
all. On the other hand, I can produce positive proof that 
none of them was so inspired. In future lectures, I will 
give this proof by demonstrating that there never existed 
any such being as God. Admitting, however, for the 
present, that some of those books were inspired, what 
proof have you that the totally uninspired members of that 
Sanhedrim either could, or did, unerringly distinguish 
between these and the equally well-written spurious books 
with which they were commingled ? What proof have you 
that any of the inspired books were selected? You merely 
guess that some of the books in question were inspired; 
and then guess that, without any inspiriation to guide 
them, that Sanhedrim selected the inspired books. But 
is it safe to stake the eternal salvation of your soul on 
the result of two mere guesses ? And is it fair to consign 
me and millions more good, honest, and intelligent men to 
the eternal fires of hell simply because we cannot accept 
your guesses as good evidence ? 

What proof have you that the Sanhedrim in question 
did not, without further examination, pronounce those 
books to be canonical which most nearly coincided with 
their own opinions, and reject, as spurious, those that 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


49 


most widely differed from tlieir own opinions? Would 
it not have been very natural for uninspired men to take 
this course? Could we expect such men to reject books 
whose teachings they did like, and did believe, and to 
select books whose teachings they did not like, and did 
not believe? What have we, then, at best, in the books 
of the Old Testament, but the favorite opinions of a small 
body of uninspired men?. And would not those men be 
almost sure to find their own peculiar opinions more 
nearly taught in the more recent writings; in the writings 
which were produced in times more nearly like their own, 
and by men more nearly like themselves ? 

From all this, is it not extremely probably that, in 
order to subserve their own selfish interests, our priests 
have misled us into staking the eternal salvation of our 
souls upon a collection of spurious writings? Think of 
this, ye blind, intolerant, Christian bigots, and tell us how 
you know that any of the books of the Old Testament 
are the Word of Godl 

What do you know of the character for honesty of the 
men who composed that Sanhedrim? Did not most of 
them, if not all, belong to the priesthood? And were not 
the Jewish priests the professional politicians, the most 
notorious and unscrupulous political tricksters and wire¬ 
pullers of that nation? How was it with the Jewish 
priests in Christ’s time ? Did they accept the true, and 
reject the false? Did they appear to be great lovers of 
truth and justice? Did they not, on the contrary, appear 
stubbornly bent upon subserving, by any means, their 
own interests? And were the priests of that time any 
worse than were the priests at the time of which we 
are speaking ? Were not selfishness and sectarian bigotry 
always prominent traits among them? And do you know 
that those who compiled the Old Testament were any 
better than the balance? Does not the Talmud—the 
very highest authority on this subject—admit that this 
Sanhedrim did make such changes as they deemed neces- 


50 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


sary in order to bring about harmony among the books 
which they proposed to canonize and retain? 

Let us, however, for a moment, admit, that, from among 
so many spurious writings, that Sanhedrim, all uninspired 
though they were, did, nevertheless, unerringly select only 
the genuine writings of Ezra. Let us also admit that, 
through the hands of a thousand dishonest priests and 
unskillful copyists, the selections then made have come 
down unchanged and uncorrupted to our own time. Then, 
before staking our eternal salvation upon their teachings, 
it becomes our duty, as reasonable beings, to ascertain, if 
possible, just what may be the value of those Ezraic writ¬ 
ings. To some extent, we have already ascertained this 
value. We will ascertain more as we proceed. 

Our priests tell us* that to doubt that these books 
are the “Word of God” will certainly subject us to eternal 
burnings in fire and brimstone. For the priests, this 
is a very convenient argument; and upon the ignorant 
it is a ver^ effective one. The intelligent, however, wish 
some proof that these books are the “Word of God” 
and that to doubt their being so involves eternal tor¬ 
ments. Let our priests give us these proofs, and we ask 
no more. 

As I have already proved, the various books of the Old 
Testament bear indubitable marks of a much more recent 
origin than is usually assigned to them. Many of these 
marks go to prove that the books which contain them 
could not have been written at an earlier date than the 
time of Ezra, or about four hundred years before the 
beginning of the Christian era. Among these marks may 
be named the fact that many of the fundamental ideas 
contained in these books were of Chaldaic origin. Thus, 
the ideas of a six-days’ creation, a single pair of human 
beings, a Garden of Eden, a speaking serpent, a fall of 
man, a general deluge, and many other things, were cer¬ 
tainly borrowed from the Chaldeans—from the Galians of 
Zoroaster. Sinre, then, these ideas could hardly have 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


51 


been obtained, and engrafted upon the religion of the 
Hebrews, before the Babylonish Captivity, we have, in 
this matter, almost positive proof that the Pentateuch—or 
at least the book of Genesis, which is founded upon these 
ideas, w r as not written before the time of that captivity. 
Indeed, the Jews must have been a long time in captivity, 
and must have become, to a great extent, reconciled to 
their condition, before they would thus engraft upon their 
own religion these ideas of their masters; and since Ezra 
was the only able Jewish writer of that period, we may,, 
with safety, fix upon him as the author of the books in 
which these ideas are expressed. In this conclusion, we 
are sustained by the Talmudists, and also by many other 
Jewish authors. The Christian father, St. Jerome, like¬ 
wise admits that Ezra was the author of these books. 
The Talmud expressly" declares that, for the names of 
their angels, and even for those of their months, the Jews 
w T ere indebted to the Chaldeans. All those books, then, 
in which months and angels are mentioned, must have 
been written after the Jews came into intimate contact 
with the Chaldeans; that is, after the Babylonish Captivity.. 
When, in addition to all these things, we add the im¬ 
portant fact that no writer, previous to Ezra’s time, makes 
the slightest mention of any of these books, are we not 
fully justified in our conclusion that he was their real 
author, and not their reproducer? 

It is a well-known fact that, in order to inspire the 
people with reverence for their so-called sacred books, the 
priests of all ages and of all religions have been obliged 
to claim for their respective books the prestige of a great 
antiquity. Few men would accept, as of divine origin, a 
book which they knew had been written in their own 
time, and by one of their own neighbors. Ezra could not 
have been ignorant of this fact. We would naturally 
expect him, therefore, to act just as he did; to set up for 
books, entirely his own, this inevitable priestly claim 
of great antiquity. 


52 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Unfortunately for Ezra, however, lie was unacquainted 
with the art so convenient to priests, and so much prac¬ 
ticed by them since his time of finding ancient books 
inscribed on plates of brass or other durable material. 
Joseph Smith, of our own time, and of our own country, 
was more fortunate. All he had to do was to find a sacred 
book, and this feat could be performed by any person 
possessed of a good degree of cunning. Ezra proceeded 
in a different manner. He composed certain books, and 
then claimed that these, his own original productions, were 
the inspired reproductions of books that had long been 
lost or destroyed. In doing this, however, he unwarily 
left, as we have seen, many marks by which his imposition 
could be and has been detected. He made use of names, of 
ideas, and of modes of'speech which were common in his 
own time, but which were entirely unknown in the times 
to which he refers his books. He also makes his pre¬ 
tended ancient writers describe customs that did not exist, 
and events that did not occur, till many centuries after the 
times in which themselves are respectively described as 
having lived. 

If, however, in the face of all these damaging facts, it 
still be claimed that the books which Ezra professed to 
reproduce actually did exist previous to the Babylonish 
Captivity, and that, after they had been long lost and 
their contents forgotten, he actually did correctly repro¬ 
duce them, then it becomes our duty to ascertain, if pos¬ 
sible what may have been the value of those books, as 
they originally existed. In order to determine this mat¬ 
ter, therefore, we will now return to Hilkiah, whom I 
promised to bring to trial on a charge of forgery. He was 
Ezra’s great-grandfather, and was high priest of the Jews 
just before they were carried away to Babylon. By virtue 
of his office, therefore, he had charge of all the records, 
and of all the sacred books of the nation. Let us see 
whether he did, or did not, honestly perform the duties of 
his office. 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


53 


If he actually did exhibit what he called “the book of 
the law,” and if, by so doing, he actually did create, among 
the people, so unparalleled an excitement as is pretended, 
then it becomes our duty to inquire whether that book 
really had once been in use among the people, and really 
had been lost, or whether it was simply a book which, to 
further his own purposes, he had himself forged, and 
which, to conceal his crime and to deceive the people, he 
pretended to have “found in the house of the Lord.” 
That the book was undoubtedly a forgery, I will now 
proceed to prove. 

In the the first place, then, there is something sus¬ 
picious in the circumstance that the book should have 
been found by a priest This was according to the usual 
course of priestcraft. Strangely enough, all the sacred 
books of the world, that have ever been found, have been 
found by priests; and all, that have ever been received 
directly from heaven, have been received b y priests. There 
is also something suspicious in the circumstance that, 
in this case, as in all others of the kind, the book which 
was found should happen to contain the favorite doctrines 
of the very priest who found, it. Without fear of successful 
contradiction, I assert that no priest ever did find , or 
receive from heaven, a book whose teachings were at 
variance with his own preconceived opinions. In all cases of 
this kind, the book has always happened to confirm, never 
to change, the previous opinions of the very priest who 
happens to find or to receive it. A Mohammedan priest, for 
instance, never happens to find, or to receive from heaven, 
any book whose teachings condemn Mohammedanism. 
So a Christian priest never happens to find, or to receive 
from heaven, a book whose teachings condemn Chris¬ 
tianity. And so in all other cases. The parties who 
happen to find the books, or to receive them from heaven, 
always happen to find, or to receive, just such books as they 
respectively happen to want. 

There is likewise something suspicious in the circum- 


54 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


stance that, in this case, as in all others of the kind, the 
book happened to be found by the very priest whose per¬ 
sonal interest and schemes of ambition it was specially 
calculated to promote. This, again, was according to the 
usual course of priestcraft. No priest ever did, or ever 
will, either find, or receive from heaven, a book whose 
teachings are calculated to thwart his own schemes of am¬ 
bition, and to promote those of some rival priest. The 
book always happens to provide, in a special manner, for 
the promotion of the very priest who happens to find or 
to receive it. Moses, Hilkiali, Ezra, Mohammed, Joseph 
Smith, and a thousand other ambitious and deeply-inter¬ 
ested priests each happened to find, or to receive from 
heaven, the very book whose teachings were specially cal¬ 
culated to elevate himself to wealth, to power, to honor, 
to fame—to all that a selfish and ambitious priest could 
desire. Unfortunately for our faith in these things, no 
book has ever happened to be found, or to be received 
from heaven, by an unselfish, disinterested, and unambi¬ 
tious party. 

As I have already stated, Hilkiah, at the time of which 
I am speaking, was high priest of the Jews. Besides 
this, he was virtually their ruler; the king, Josiali, being 
a mere youth, and a pliant instrument in the hands of this 
wily, ambitious, unscrupulous, and bloodthirsty priest. 
According to the Bible account, Hilkiah and the king, at 
that very time, were engaged in a war of extermination 
against a powerful sect who differed from them in relig¬ 
ious opinions; and so unrelenting in their persecutions 
were these two godly cutthroats—so unremitting were 
they in their efforts to do “ that which was right in the 
sight of the Lord,” that they not only burnt the living 
priests of that other sect upon altars, as sacrifices to God, 
But also, like ghouls, went down into the graves, and 
dragged out and burnt, upon the same horrible altars, 
and as sacrifices to the same horrible God, the decaying 
bodies of the silent and helpless dead. To have been 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


55 


beaten, then, after the perpetration of these monstrous 
acts of piety, would have been themselves to suffer the 
most fearful punishments that their deeply-wronged and 
intensely exasperated enemies could inflict upon them. 

Under such circumstances, it was very natural that 
Hilkiali and the king should make desperate efforts to 
insure success. As to any moral scruples, in regard to the 
means of securing success, they could not have had any. 
This fact is evident from the worse than fiendish manner 
in which they were wont to treat both the living and the 
dead of those who happened to differ from them in relig¬ 
ious opinions. With these men to succeed by any means, 
however foul, was to do “ that which was right in the sight 
of the Lord.” They could insure success, however, only 
by bringing to bear some powerful influence upon the 
minds of the ignorant masses; and such an influence could 
be exercised only by bringing to bear upon the minds of 
the people something in the form of religion; something 
that to them would seem to come with the authority of 
God himself. 

Even among his own sect, there would inevitably be a 
large body of the more intelligent and humane classes of 
the people who would seriously question Hilkiah’s right 
to act as he was acting. This would be especially the 
case with those whose friends and relatives he had so 
ruthlessly butchered. These conservative parties would 
naturally demand of Hilkiah the authority by which he did 
all these things. And he would have to show some 
authority higher than that of his own will; higher, 
indeed, than any that could be given to him by his instru¬ 
ment, the young king. He would have to show that his 
authority came from “ on high.” But how was he to show 
this? According to the Bible account, he had no “book 
of the law ” containing such authority. He had nothing 
at all to show that he was commissioned by God to do 
these things. If lie only had such a book, he would be 
safe enough. The people of his own sect would never 


56 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


think of such a thing as questioning the express command 
of their own God. 

Under these circumstances, Hilkiah was compelled to 
have a “ book of the law of the Lord ” which would fully 
authorize him to do all that he w~as doing. But how was 
he to obtain such a book ? To have openly written one 
himself would evidently have proved a failure. To have 
pretended that he wrote it under inspiration would have 
helped him but little. Those who were most seriously 
opposed to his course of conduct would not have been at 
all likely to accept his own unsupported testimony in favor 
of his own inspiration. This would have been especially 
the case when they came to see that he had written him¬ 
self a commission to perform the very deeds the propriety 
of which they were calling in question. And yet, in order 
to be of any service to him, the book had to authorize the 
commission of these very deeds. Under these desperate' 
circumstances, he had no alternative. He had to find a 
book, and — he (( found ” it. In order to find it, how¬ 
ever, he had first to make it, and then have it lost Thus 
you see that the finding of this book was far more prob¬ 
ably the result of a necessity, of a trick, than of an acci¬ 
dent. 

Whether Hilkiah in person found the book, or whether 
it was found and placed in his hands by one of his work¬ 
men, we are not informed. It would certainly have been 
in better taste to have had it found by one of his 'work¬ 
men who was entirely ignorant of the plot according to 
which it was to be found. That it was found by some of 
the workmen, and that these workmen were parties to the 
plot, appears extremely probable from the fact, as stated 
in the story itself, that, without even counting the money, 
Hilkiah emptied the entire treasury of “ the house of the 
Lord ” into the hands of those workmen. Of itself, this 
was a very suspicious proceeding. Business men, and 
especially Jews, are not wont, in honest transactions, ta 
thus pour out, uncounted, vast sums of money into the' 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


57 


hands of their workmen. From the fact, then, that Hil- 
kiali, on that occasion, did thus pour out the public 
money, uncounted, into the hands of the workmen who 
were cleaning out and repairing “ the house of the Lord,” 
it is evident that he was not paying them for any ordinary 
or honest services. The correctness of this conclusion is 
confirmed by the fact that the book in question came into 
his hands at the very time and the very place at which he 
made this extravagant payment. Can these several facts 
be accounted for on any other reasonable hypothesis than 
that those workmen were bribed to act their part in a base 
imposition? The affair becomes still more clearly a 
fraudulent one, when we take into consideration the fact 
that all those workmen were especially selected by Hil- 
kiah himself and the king. In a fraudulent affair, such a 
selection was not only natural, but absolutely necessary. 
None but carefully selected men could have been safely 
trusted as participants in such a transaction. Had the 
affair been an honest one, the selecting of the common 
workmen would doubtless have been left to the head 
workmen, who alone would have been selected by Hilkiah 
and the king. 

Whether the king was Hilkiah’s accomplice, in this 
iniquitous affair, or only his miserable dupe, does not suffi¬ 
ciently appear. Several facts, however, connected with 
the case, render it more probable that he was a willing and 
wicked accomplice. In the first place, Hilkiah could not 
have hoped to succeed in such an undertaking, without the 
hearty co-operation of the king, and this could be secured 
only by taking him fully into the whole secret. That he 
would make a safe and efficient accomplice, in so infamous 
an undertaking, was evident from the fact that he was 
already fully proved to be a thorough religious bigot and 
fanatic; and from the fact that, for ten years, he and Hil¬ 
kiah had been harmoniously carrying on together their 
favorite occupation of butchering men, women, and chil¬ 
dren who differed from them in opinion; of burning liv- 


58 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ing men upon altars as sacrifices to tlieir God; of revenge¬ 
fully digging up and burning the bodies of the dead; and 
of generally doing “ that which was right in the sight of 
the Lord.” Besides this, the king and Hilkiah had a 
common interest in the finding of the book. 

The king being thus a safe, an efficient, and a neces¬ 
sary person for the part which he was required to act, 
Hilkiah w r ould undoubtedly take him in as a full accom¬ 
plice in this infamous affair. That he was thus taken in 
and that he acted a prepared part, is evident from the 
manner in which he acted after the book was “ found.” 
Instead of carefully examining the book, and inquiring 
into the circumstances under which it was “found,” he 
simply heard a portion of it read, and then, in a most 
theatrical manner, “ rent his clothes,” and declared that 
“this book” was “the word of the Lord.” If he had 
not been simply playing a prepared part, would he have 
acted in this manner? Was not such conduct, especially 
in a king, by far too prompt, and too theatrical, to be nat¬ 
ural and unpremeditated ? Could he, without any exam¬ 
ination whatever of the book, be really so certain as he 
professed to be, that it was “the word of the Lord?” 
Was he so expert in the Lord’s peculiar style of expres¬ 
sion, that, upon merely hearing a few paragraphs read, he 
could, with absolute certainty, declare that the language 
was that of the Lord? Can there be any reasonable 
doubt that he was acting a prepared part ? 

If, at the present time, some priest should pretend to 
find a book of similarly high pretensions, and, if he should 
have a small portion of it read to D’lsraeli, to Bismarck, to 
Emperor William, to the czar of Kussia, or to the president 
of France, or of the United States, do you suppose that the 
party hearing the reading would, so promptly as did Jo- 
siah, tear his new clothes, and declare the book to be “ the 
word of the Lord? ” Would not any one of the parties 
named—would not any intelligent person of the present 
time, before thus tearing his clothes and pronouncing the 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


59 


new-found book to be “ the word of the Lord,” first care¬ 
fully examine the book itself, and also the circumstances 
under which it was said to have been found? And if, 
without the slightest examination into the matter, one of 
these parties should, as did Josiah, promptly, and theat¬ 
rically, tear his clothes and declare that the book was “the 
word of the Lord,” of what yalue, in the eyes of intelligent 
persons, would be his declaration, thus ignorantly, impru¬ 
dently, and theatrically made ? How exceedingly ridicu¬ 
lous does such a proceeding appear, when supposed to be 
enacted by some great statesman or ruler of our own time, 
and of our own country! And is it any the less ridiculous, 
when supposed to have been enacted by a great ruler, in a 
time and a country distant from our own ? When will the 
priest-blinded masses learn to exercise, upon such subjects, 
a little reason and common sense ? 

Another proof that this whole affair was a base imposi¬ 
tion, and that the king and Hilkiah were accomplices in 
that imposition, is found in the fact that, after hearing a 
portion of the book read, and after declaring it to be “ the 
word of the Lord,” the king appointed certain men to in¬ 
quire of the Lord concerning it. In order that they might 
make this inquiry, and get the answer which he wanted, 
he had them go to an obscure woman who was never heard 
of on any other occasion. If he had really wished to ob¬ 
tain a genuine communication from the Lord, why did he 
seek it through a woman who was so utterly unknown that 
her place of residence had to be described ? Why did he 
not seek it through the renowned prophet Jeremiah, who 
was then living right there in the city, and whose responses 
from the Lord would undeniably have had far greater 
weight with the people than had those of the obscure 
woman in question ? The reason why the woman was con¬ 
sulted, in preference to Jeremiah, is very obvious. It is 
simply because the plotters con Id use the woman as their 
instrument , while they could not thus use Jeremiah. 

If there ever was an honest prophet, Jeremiah seems to 


60 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


have been that one. He would doubtless have scorned to 
give Hilkiah and the king any aid or encouragement in 
their infamous imposition. At any rate, being himself a 
star actor on the Lord’s stage, he would certainly not have 
condescended to act a secondary part in the play of Hil¬ 
kiah, his great rival. Being himself an ambitious man, he 
would never have aided a rival to rise above himself. 
Hilkiah knew better than to take such a man into his con¬ 
fidence. 

“ But why,” you ask, “ did not Jeremiah expose the 
wickedness of these two godly impostors, Josiah and Hil¬ 
kiah ? ” To this I reply, that to have done so in a bold 
and open manner would have been to insure his own de¬ 
struction. One of these impostors was his king; the other 
was his high priest. He was in their power, and he knew 
that they wished for a pretext to destroy him. Indeed, 
because he always opposed the wicked doings of the priest¬ 
hood, of whom Hilkiah was the head, he was soon after 
thrown into a dungeon, and treated with great cruelty. 
In as plain language as he dared use, he did expose the 
corruption of these two wicked men, and of their wicked 
associates. In Jer. vi, 13, 28, we read: “For from the 
least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is 
given to covetousness: and from the prophet even unto 
the priest, every one dealeth falsely. They are all griev¬ 
ous revolters, walking with slanders : they are brass and 
iron; they are all corrupters.” This was written of the 
whole Jewish people, just after the pretended finding of 
“the book of the law,” and while Josiah and Hilkiah were 
both still living. These two arch-impostors, therefore, 
were certainly included among those who were “covetous,”' 
who dealt “falsely,” who were “grievous revolters,” who 
were “brass and iron,” who were “corrupters,” etc. 
Would you have the expose couched in stronger language? 

In Jer. i, 1, we learn that Jeremiah was “ the son of Hil¬ 
kiah.” Whether this Hilkiah was or was not the Hilkiah 
of whom we have been speaking, I cannot certainly say. 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


G1 


If he was, this fact would be an additional reason why Jer¬ 
emiah did not more directly expose Hilkiah’s imposition 
He would not like to expose the wickedness of his own 
father. 

Besides Jeremiah, there was also in Jerusalem, or at 
least in Judea, at the time of which we are speaking, 
another famous prophet, Zephaniah, whose responses from 
the Lord would, doubtless, have had greater weight with 
the people than had those of the obscure woman in ques¬ 
tion. Why was not he consulted? Simply because he, 
too, had a mind of his own, and was opposed to wicked 
impositions. Speaking of Jerusalem, as she then was, he 
says: “Her princes within her are roaring lions; her 
judges are ravening wolves. . . . Her prophets are 

light and treacherous persons; her priests have polluted 
the sanctuary, they have done violence to the law.” Hil- 
kiah could not use this man as an instrument , and, hence, 
he did not use him at all. 

In Jer. vii, 22, we read: “ I spake not unto your fathers, 
nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out 
of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings and sacri¬ 
fices.” At the time this was written, Hilkiah’s pretended 
“ book of the law ” had begun to be accepted by the peo¬ 
ple; and since it represented the Lord as occupying much 
of his time in the undignified occupation of teaching and 
commanding the people “ concerning burnt offerings and 
sacrifices,” and in the still more undignified operation of 
regaling his olfactories upon the savory odors of roast 
beef, Jeremiah felt it to be his duty to thus plainly contra¬ 
dict the pernicious and blasphemous teachings of that 
book. 

In Is. i, 11-14, we read: “ To what purpose is the multi¬ 
tude of your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord : I am full 
of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; 
and I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or 
of lie-goats. When ye come to appear before me, who hath 
required this at your hand, to tread my courts ? Bring no 


62 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


more vain oblations : incense is an abomination unto me ; 
the new-moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I 
cannot away with it; it is iniquity, even the solemn meet¬ 
ing. Your new-moons and your appointed feasts my soul 
hatetli; they are a trouble unto me; I am weary to bear 
them.” From this language, which, if ever used at all by 
Isaiah, must have been used a hundred years or more be¬ 
fore Hilkiah’s time, we learn that Isaiah boldly opposed 
the absurd doctrines concerning sacrifices, sabbaths, etc., 
which were taught in his day, and which were afterward 
incorporated by Hilkiah in his pretended “ book of the 
law.” Had the “book of the law,” containing these 
doctrines, existed in his day, or had these doctrines 
rested upon any other good authority, would he have 
thus opposed them, and pronounced them iniquities 
and abominations in the sight of the Lord? If he had be¬ 
lieved that the Lord had required these things at the 
hands of the people, would he have needed to ask, “Who 
hath required this at your hand ?” From all this, is it not 
evident that the “ book of the law ” was the production of 
a later time than that of Isaiah? 

And now, what have my opponents to say on the other 
side of this question ? They teach that the high priest, 
Caiaphas, one of Hilkiah’s successors, did perpetrate an 
imposition upon the people. They teach that he did bribe 
the soldiers, wdio guarded the sepulcher of Jesus, and did 
instruct them to make a false report concerning the disap¬ 
pearance of the body of Jesus, which they had been placed 
there to guard. And do these opponents of mine know that 
Hilkiah was any more honest than was Caiaphas; or that the 
workmen* in Hilkiah’s employ were any more honest than 
were the soldiers who guarded the sepulcher of Jesus? 
Was not Hilkiah’s character as a man and as a priest a thou¬ 
sand-fold blacker than was that of Caiaphas ? Had Caia¬ 
phas, like Hilkiah, ever offered to God, upon altars, vast 
numbers of human sacrifices ? Had he, like Hilkiah, ever 
digged up the rotting bodies of the dead, and burnt them 


THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


63 


upon altars as sacrifices to God ? Besides this, did not 
Hilkiah’s safety—his very life—depend upon the success of 
some such scheme as the finding of that book? Was there 
not, then, in his case, a far more weighty motive for the 
perpetration of a fraud upon the people, than there was in 
the case of Caiaphas, whose life, whose liberty, and whose 
office were, in no way, endangered? If, then, to accom¬ 
plish his own purposes, Caiaphas, with his far better 
character, and with no urgent necessity pressing upon him, 
did bribe the soldiers, and did deceive the people in re¬ 
gard to the disappearance of an important dead body, is it 
unreasonable /to believe, or, at least, to suspect, that, with 
his far worse character, and with a fearful necessity press¬ 
ing upon him, Hilkiah would perpetrate a similar fraud in 
regard to the finding of an important book ? Is not the 
circumstantial evidence against Hilkiah much stronger 
than is that against Caiaphas ? And must we, indeed, as 
your priests teach, be eternally damned, if we do not be¬ 
lieve the weaker testimony against Caiaphas, and if we do 
believe the stronger testimony against Hilkiah? 

From the fact that the book which Hilkiah pretended 
to have found was passed about from man to man, it must 
have been written upon some light material, such as papy¬ 
rus or parchment. But will my opponents attempt to 
prove that either of these articles, or that any other light 
writing material, was in use, and especially among the 
Jews, at an earlier date than Hilkiah’s own time ? Upon 
what kind of material, then, was that book written, and 
how large could it have been, and yet have lain so long, 
unfound, “in the house of the Lord? ” Besides this, who 
wrote the book ? If it had been written by Moses, it must 
have been eight hundred years old, and could not have 
been written upon either papyrus or parchment, both these 
articles being certainly unknown in his day. If the book 
was not written by either Moses or Hilkiah, its authorship, 
of necessity, is thrown upon some entirely unknown party 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


64 

who may have been, if possible, a greater scountfrel than 
was either Moses or Hilkiah. 

Besides all this, I would like to have mj opponents 
inform us how long this book had been in use before it 
was lost; also, when, how, and by whom, it was lost. If it 
had been in use among the Jews during the first five cen¬ 
turies of their residence in the land of Canaan, why is it 
not once mentioned in all that portion of their history? 
Was it not of as much importance to them as the Bible is 
to us? And could the history of five hundred years of 
any Christian nation be given without even the slightest 
allusion to the Bible ? And how came that book to be 
lost? Was it in no one’s care? Was no one responsible 
for it? Was it never missed? Was the party who lost it 
never called to account for his carelessness? Was no 
inquiry ever made concerning it? Was no effort ever 
made to find it? Did so great a loss create no excitement 
among the people? Would the entire loss of every copy 
in existence of the Bible create no excitement at the pres¬ 
ent time? Why was no record of that great loss ever 
made ? And how could that book have lain, unfound, “ in 
the house of the Lord,” for so long a period that even the 
tradition of its existence and of its contents had perished 
from among men? If there were but one copy of the 
Bible in the world, do you think it could be so long and so 
thoroughly lost in any “house of the Lord?” 

In the entire history of the children of Israel, up to 
the time of Hilkiah, I can find but one mention made of 
“ the book of the law.” This mention is found in the 
seventeenth chapter of the same book in which we find the 
story of Hilkiah. Being evidently written by the same 
author, this mention does not at all strengthen the story. 

This mention makes “the book of the law ” to have been 
used by itinerant teachers, in the reign of Jehosliaphat, 
510 years after the death of Moses, and 317 years before 
the pretended finding of the same book by Hilkiah. At 
the very farthest, then, the book could not have been lost 



THE OLD TESTAMENT. 


65 


over 317 years. And could the people, still living under a 
government in which the laws contained in this book had 
once been so generally taught and enforced, have entirely 
lost, in so short a time, all tradition of the book from 
which most of their laws were derived? Besides this, we 
learn from the same writer that about sixty years before 
Hilkiah’s time, Hezekiali had the people thoroughly taught 
in the “laws of the Lord.” Whether these laws were 
taught from “ the book of the law,” or merely from mem¬ 
ory, we are not informed. It makes no difference, how- 
over, from what they were taught. If they were thus gen¬ 
erally taught at all, at so recent a time, how came Josiah 
and his people to be so ignorant of those same laws? 
Would not many old persons have been still living who 
had learned those laws during the reign of Hezekiah; and 
would not these persons have kept the memory of those 
laws alive among the people ? What say my opponents ? 

Finally, do you believe that your God actually did thus 
leave his “Holy Word” liable to be entirely lost? Do 
you believe that he actually did thus leave the salvation of 
the whole human race to depend upon the accidental find¬ 
ing of this book? And do you believe that he really will 
eternally damn all of us poor Infidels simply because we 
are unable to believe this absurd story ? Thus we dispose 
of the Old Testament. We find that it stands upon 
nothing. 


66 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


LECTURE THIRD. 

THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Resting, as it does, upon the authenticity of the whole 
Bible, the Christian Religion must fall to the ground, if 
any essential portion of that book prove to be unauthen- 
tic. In proving, therefore, as I did in my last two lect¬ 
ures, that the Old Testament Scriptures are totally un¬ 
worthy of belief, I actually proved, also, that the Christian 
Religion is a monstrous imposition. If there never was 
such a creation as is described in the Old Testament, then 
there evidently never could have been any such Creator as 
is taught by the Christian Religion; and, if there never was 
any such God or Creator, then there evidently never could 
have been any such Son of God as is taught by the Chris¬ 
tian Religion. If there never was any fall of man—if man 
was never in a lost condition, then there evidently never 
could have been any such redemption—any such Re¬ 
deemer or Savior—as is taught by the Christian Religion. 

If we accept Christianity itself, we are, of necessity, 
bound also to accept all that upon which it depends. We 
are bound to accept the doctrines, plainly taught in the 
Bible, that, only about six thousand years ago, the entire 
universe was absolutely created, all out of nothing; that 
this creation was performed within the space of six literal 
days; that the earth was made flat and stationary; that it 
is much larger than all the rest of the universe put 
together; that what we call the sky is a solid structure or 
firmament, placed like an inverted bowl over our flat and 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


67 


stationary earth; that, above this firmament, are vast res¬ 
ervoirs of water provided for the benefit of the earth; 
that a God lives up there, and has his throne resting upon 
this same firmament; that, whenever he sees fit to do so, 
this God can cause the water from these reservoirs to pour 
down upon the earth, through valves or windows, provided 
for this purpose, in the firmament; that enough water was 
once made to thus pour down through these windows, to 
raise a flood several miles in depth all over the face of the 
earth ; that, in order to keep them from falling down upon 
the earth, the sun, the moon, and the stars, all, of neces¬ 
sity, at an equal distance from the earth, are set, or stuck 
like nails, into the under-side of this same solid sky or 
firmament, and, of equal necessity, a little lower down or 
nearer to the earth than are the waters which are above 
this firmament; that many stars have already fallen down 
upon the earth, and that, at some future time, all the bal¬ 
ance are to come rattling down upon the ground, like so 
many figs, and that the firmament itself is then to be 
rolled together like a scroll and taken away; that light 
could and did exist before there was any luminous body to 
emit light; that several perfect days could and did exist 
before there was any sun to produce day; that all the 
fowls were “ brought forth ” by the “ waters,” at the same 
time with the fish, and in the same manner; that, at the 
same time, the same fowls were all “ formed out of the 
ground ;” that all the plants were “ brought forth ” by the 
“earth,” just as they are brought forth to-day; that, at 
the same time, these same plants were all “ made,” with¬ 
out ever having been “ in the earth ” at all; that there was 
once a serpent that walked, talked, and reasoned like a 
philosopher; that there was once an ass that exhorted like 
a Methodist preacher at a camp-meeting; that a slice of 
flesh large enough to make a full-grown woman of was 
once carved from a sleeping man, without waking him, or 
even making *a sore place; that a thousand well-armed 
men let one man beat out their brains with a bone; that 


68 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ihis same man, with his naked hands, overturned an im¬ 
mense building, in which were three thousand people, all 
of whom were slain; that a certain other man boarded 
three days at a kind of hotel kept inside of a fish’s belly; 
that this fish was hell, or at least a hell-of-fish; and a 
thousand more similar doctrines. If we cannot accept all 
these monstrous doctrines, then we are bound to pro¬ 
nounce the Christian Religion a monstrous imposition. 

In order to sustain your religion, therefore, my Chris¬ 
tian friends, you must not only admit the truth of all these 
absurd doctrines, but must actually prove that they are 
true. Besides this, you must actually prove that the whole 
human race sprung from a single pair, Adam and Eve; 
that these two primitive persons were naked savages too 
ignorant to know that they were naked; that God intended 
to keep them always in that degraded condition; that God 
forbade them, on pain of immediate death, to eat a certain 
fruit, which, to tempt them, he placed before them, which 
they most greatly needed, which he very well knew they 
would eat, and which he fully intended they should eat; 
that when, according to his own expectation and intention, 
they did eat this fruit, he flew into an uncontrollable rage, and 
immediately passed the sentence 4 of death, both temporal 
and eternal, not only on these two poor ignorant offenders, 
but, also, upon all their posterity, who, being yet unborn, 
could not have been guilty of any offense at all; that, in 
order to save mankind, as far as possible, from the effects 
of this sentence, which he himself, in his infinite wisdom 
and mercy, had passed upon them, he then determined to 
beget himself a son, and to vent his wrath upon this inno¬ 
cent son, instead of upon the offending human race; that, 
after four thousand years had passed, and hell was pretty 
well crammed with the victims of his wrath, he did beget 
himself a son, and did have this son cruelly and treacher¬ 
ously murdered; that he begat this son upo^ an unmarried 
woman; that he performed this act without any bodily 
parts to perform it with. You must prove, too, that Jesus 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


69 


was certainly this same God-begotten—this same God- 
murdered—Savior of the world, and that yourselves are the 
true followers of this murdered Son of a murderous God. 

Knowing, as I do, that you are totally unable to prove 
any of these things—knowing that you have nothing at all 
to stand on except bare-faced assumptions, I might, with 
perfect propriety, condemn your religion as an outrageous 
imposition. Before doing this, however, I wish to show 
that this condemnation is not only perfectly just, but also 
absolutely unavoidable. 

In the first place, then, it is a universally admitted fact 
that the Jews, God’s chosen people, always did, and do 
yet, pronounce Christianity a monstrous fraud. They cer¬ 
tainly ought to be the best judges of the meaning of their 
own Scriptures, and yet they declare that, in the entire 
body of those Scriptures, there is not a single passage that 
has the slightest reference to Jesus, the pretended Messiah 
of the Christians. They justly ridicule the absurd inter¬ 
pretations put upon many portions of their Scriptures by 
Christians in their desperate attempts to make it appear 
that those Scriptures refer, prophetically, to Jesus as the 
Savior of the world. With equal justice they also ridicule 
the Christian idea of salvation, which consists principally 
in mere forms and ceremonies by means of which old 
Uncle Splitfoot is euchered out of souls to which he has a 
perfect right, and which, for his own. amusement, he would 
otherwise make dance, barefoot, in melted brimstone. 
The Jews, having never had any local hell, of course, never 
needed any such ridiculous means of salvation. 

I will now proceed to notice the books of the New 
Testament; or at least those which are called gospels, and 
upon which all the others depend. If these books fail, 
the Christian Beligion is bound to fall. In my present 
lecture, I shall confine myself to the external evidence 
bearing upon these books, and leave the internal evidence 
to be examined in my next lecture. 

With their usual effrontery, priests have assumed, and 


70 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


then taught as a fact, that the four books called gospels 
were written, under inspiration of God, by four saints: 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. That this assumption 
is totally unwarrantable, I will now prove. 

In the first place, then, I challenge my opponents to 
prove that there ever were any such saints, any such 
writers, as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I can find no 
evidence that any such persons ever existed. It is said 
that, on a small island in the Mediterranean Sea, a certain 
priest, not long ago, was wont to sell for charms, to his 
credulous flock, the labels from his sardine boxes, repre¬ 
senting these labels as relics once worn by Saint Sardine. 
Here a saint wa^ invented because he was needed. And 
can my opponents prove that the four saints, of whom we 
are speaking, were not in like manner mere priestly inven¬ 
tions, gotten up and attached to certain books in order to 
make those books take with the people? That this was 
the way those four saints originated, there can be but 
little doubt. Be this as it may, however, there is not, 
in any of the four books in question, a single passage that 
claims to have been written by any one of these four 
supposititious saints. Besides this, the books do not claim 
for their unknown authors any such thing as inspiration. 
This totally unfounded claim was set up for them, in 
later years, by the connivance of unscrupulous priests, 
who correctly expected thereby to be the better able to 
impose the teachings of these books upon the ignorant 
multitudes. So far from setting up any such claim for 
themselves, the authors of these books do not even claim 
inspiration for the supposititious saints “according to” 
whom they respectively profess to have written. The 
authors themselves do not even vouch for the truth of 
their own respective writings. They all shirk this 
responsibility by severally claiming to write, not what 
themselves knew to be facts, but what were “according 
to” the teachings of some other person. By this remark¬ 
able prudence, so rare among what are called sacred 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


71 


writers, these authors exhibit considerable doubt in 
regard to the truth of the matters concerning which they 
severally write. Had they themselves professed to know 
the truth of these matters, or even to firmly believe it, 
would they so prudently have professed to write “ accord¬ 
ing to” some other parties? 

And now, let me ask, what do we know of the character 
for truthfulness of either these unknown authors them¬ 
selves, or the supposititious saints “according to” whom 
they severally profess to have written ? When and where 
did these several authors live? In what language, and 
from what motives, did they write ? What opportunities 
had they of knowing that any such saints as Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, ever existed, or ever taught the 
doctrines severally ascribed to them? When and where 
did these four supposititious saints live? In what lan¬ 
guages, and from what motives, did they teach the doc¬ 
trines severally ascribed to them? What opportunities 
had they of knowing that any such person as Jesus ever 
lived; that he ever taught the doctrines, or performed the 
miracles, ascribed to him; that his mother was a virgin; 
that his father was the Holy Ghost; that he arose from 
the dead, etc.? To all this you may answer that they 
were inspired to know all these things. But what proof 
have you that they were inspired? Did they ever set up 
for themselves any claim of inspiration? Would they not 
have set up this claim, if they had been inspired? Does 
your bare-faced assumption that they were inspired 
amount to anything as an argument? Finally, what do 
we know of the character for honesty and competency of 
the long list of copyists and translators, through whose 
hands, successively, the several gospels came, before they 
reached those copies from which our copies were taken? 

Among the early Christians, there were probably thou¬ 
sands of men bearing each of the very common names, 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This being the case, 
how are we, from among so many, to know upon which 


72 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


individual of each of tliese names was conferred the 
doubtful honor of being the authority “ according to ” whom 
one of the books in question was professedly written? 
You may claim that, although there may have been thou¬ 
sands of men bearing each of these names, there was only 
one Saint Matthew, only one Saint Mark, etc. The setting 
up of this claim, however, can avail you nothing. It is a 
fact, which no Bible critic will venture to deny, that the 
term saint prefixed to each of these names is a compara¬ 
tively modern corruption, and that the gospels were 
formerly ascribed severally to the unpretentious, the un¬ 
titled, persons, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Previous 
to the comparatively recent, and the totally unauthorized, 
adoption of this prefix, saint, there was not a word, either 
in the bodies of the gospels, or in their titles, to distin¬ 
guish these four individuals, in any way, from the thou¬ 
sands of others who may have borne each of these same 
names. 

It is a well-known fact that Saintship is simply one of 
the many cunning, if not wicked, inventions made by the 
Catholic Church, during the time of her greatest corrup¬ 
tion. It seems to have been instituted in lieu of godship, 
which, from time immemorial, had been conferred, by 
nearly all nations, upon their deceased heroes, philosophers, 
and statesmen. The Christians, having professedly adopted 
the monotheism of the Jews, could not, as could the pol¬ 
ytheistic pagans, consistently increase the number of their 
gods, by thus conferring godship upon their great men 
after death. Hence the necessity of inventing an equal 
honor which could be conferred upon deceased human be¬ 
ings, without any danger of thereby increasing the number 
of legitimate gods. 

Saintship resulting thus, from a necessity of the Cath¬ 
olic Church, is rightfully the exclusive property of its in¬ 
ventors, the Catholics, alone. Protestants can neither 
make saints, nor buy them. If they have saints, then, at 
all, they must, of necessity, steal them. Think of this, my 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


73 


Protestant brethren, and never again have the assurance 
to claim any property in St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, 
St. John, St. Sardine, St. Balaam’s-ass, or any other saint. 
Indeed, according to their own rules, the Catholics them¬ 
selves can exercise the saint-making power only on persons 
who have been deceased for a long period of years. No 
man ever was, or ever could be, a saint during his own 
lifetime. Whatever Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John did, 
therefore, they must, of necessity, have done as ordinary 
men, and not as saints. And could the empty act of voting 
the prefix Saint to the name of each of these four men, a 
thousand years after the death of the men themselves, add 
anything to the credibility of what they may have taught 
or written during their lifetime? Could such a vote make 
a false statement true, or a forged writing genuine ? If it 
could not do these things, then the gospels are no more 
worthy of belief now than they would have been had they 
remained, as they once were, simply “ according to ” cer¬ 
tain unknown and very ordinary persons, called Matthew,. 
Mark, Luke, and John. 

It is a welLknown fact that all authors give titles to- 
their own books. The authors of the various gospels 
could not have been exceptions to this rule. In order that 
these books, of which there were over fifty in all, might be 
distinguished one from another, it was absolutely neces¬ 
sary that each of them should have a distinctive title. 
Wliat, then, were the respective titles of the four gospels 
which we still retain ? Of necessity, those titles must have 
been the same that the books now have, unless the present 
titles be forgeries. If the present titles be forgeries, then, 
in them, we have primafacie evidence that the books have 
been tampered with, and corrupted, we know not to what 
extent. If, on the other hand, the present titles be genu¬ 
ine, then, in them, we have prima facie evidence that the 
books were not written respectively by Matthew, Mark, 
Luke, and John. As we have already seen, these men 
could not have used the term Saint in connection with 


74 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


their own names; and, unless they were madmen, they 
would not, with reference to themselves, have used the 
expression “ according to.” With all your wonderful ca¬ 
pacity for believing absurd and incredible things, can you, 
my Christian friends, really believe that each of the four 
persons in question acted so absurdly, so shamelessly, as 
to declare that his own writings were “ according to ” his 
own sainted self? If, in a collection of scientific writ¬ 
ings, you should find an article entitled, “ Theory of Elec¬ 
tricity according to the World-renowned Philosopher, Dr. 
Eranklin,” could you, for a moment, be made to believe 
that the article had been written and entitled by Dr. 
Eranklin himself? If, further, in the same collection of 
writings, and in consecutive order, you should find several 
other similar articles, each one of them professing to be 
the “Theory of Electricity according to” some other 
“World-renowned Philosopher,” would you not be abso¬ 
lutely certain that the articles had been written by other 
parties, and not by the “World-renowned Philosophers” 
themselves ? How, then, can you believe that Matthew 
himself ever wrote, and entitled the book called “ The Gos¬ 
pel according to Saint Matthew?” So of the other gos¬ 
pels. Could each of them have been written by the 
man “ according to ” whom it was written? 

If, then, you still wish to claim that these gospels were 
written respectively by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
you are bound not only to admit, but to prove, that the 
original titles of these books have been feloniously 
destroyed, and that the present titles are base forgeries. 
In proving this, however, you are bound to prove also that 
the books themselves, as we now have them, ■were put 
upon the world by a set of base forgers—by a set of men 
who, to accomplish their own purposes, would not have 
scrupled to forge, or at least to corrupt, as much as they 
saw fit, of the contents as well as of the titles of these 
books. Besides this, after taking away from these books 
their forged titles, is there a single word left, in any one of 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


75 


them, from which we can even infer that Matthew, Mark, 
Lnke, or John had anything to do with it? Finally, how 
are we to know that the unknown forgers in question forged, 
for the titles of these books, the names of real persons ? 
May they not have forged the names of fictitious persons ? 
And if they did do this, must not the gospels be fictitious 
also? Could they be otherwise and still be “according 
to ” fictitious characters? 

From all this, it is evident that, if the titles of the gos¬ 
pels be genuine, the Christian religion rests entirely upon 
the unsupported word of a set of totally unknown and 
irresponsible men; and that if the titles be not genuine, it 
rests, in like manner, entirely upon the unsupported word 
of a set of admitted liars and forgers. Take which horn 
they may of this dilemma, my opponents must have won¬ 
derfully hard faces to unblushingly declare, as is their 
wont, that these books are the “ Inspired Word of 
God,” and that all those w r ho doubt that they are so will 
be incontinently hustled off into hell. 

As to when the four books in question were severally 
written, nothing certain is known. Dr. Clarke, the great 
Commentator, admits that, in regard to this matter, there 
is a great difference of opinion among Bible critics. The 
first Christian father that mentions these books is Irenaeus, 
who flourished near the close of the second century. Had 
they existed previous to that time, the earlier fathers 
would surely have mentioned them. Irenaeus himself prob¬ 
ably forged them, or had this done. From all we can 
learn of his character, he was, in a high degree, ambitious, 
enterprising, and unscrupulous—just the kind of man to 
successfully accomplish such an undertaking. At any rate, 
whether he forged them himself or not, he certainly intro¬ 
duces them to the world, on his own authority alone, and 
declares that there are just four of them, “ because there 
are but four quarters of the world, and every cherubim 
has four faces.” How wonderfully convincing is the 
unsupported testimony of such a reasoner! 


76 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


It is also admitted to be a fact that no one knows' 
where, or in what language, the gospels were severally 
written. It is further admitted that the oldest copy of 
them now known was written as late as the sixth century; 
and that no one even professes to know how many, and 
how great, changes may have been made in them before 
they reached that copy. Indeed, it is admitted to be an 
undeniable fact that no one can be absolutely certain that 
any portion of the original contents of these books 
remains unchanged. On the other hand, it is well known 
that over eighty thousand copies of these books have 
been found, all of which differ, one from another, in many 
important particulars. Indeed, many of these copies 
resemble one another very little in anything except their 
titles. In some instances, whole chapters have been 
added to some copies, or dropped from others. No one 
even pretends to know that our copies were taken from the 
most nearly correct of these eighty thousand different 
readings. And yet our priests have the effrontery to 
denounce as Infidels, doomed to eternal burnings, all 
those persons whose superior intelligence renders them 
unable to accept, as the “ Inspired Word of God,” these 
mutilated, self-contradictory, and totally unauthentic 
writings. 

It is a well-known fact that many of the fathers of the 
church, if not all of them, taught that lying, forgery, the 
invention of pretended miracles, etc., when performed for 
the advancement of the Christian Religion and the glory 
of God, were meritorious acts which should, by no means, 
be left unperformed. It is also a well-known fact that, for 
the first twelve centuries or more of their history, the 
Catholic priesthood were noted for their almost universal 
corruption—for their wonderful assiduity in the propaga¬ 
tion of their religion, by means of lying, forging books, 
inventing pretended miracles, burning heretics, etc. The 
Christian who would now deny these things, would simply 
give the lie to the greatest lights of his own church,.. 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 77 

and expose liis own woeful ignorance of the history of his 
own religion. 

And would the original gospels, by whomsoever writ¬ 
ten, be at all likely to come down, for so many hundreds 
of years, untampered with by the long list of acknowl¬ 
edged liars and forgers, through whose hands we are 
bound to admit that they did come? If, in order to 
render the ignorant multitudes more Godly—more pliable 
instruments of priestcraft—certain radical changes in the 
gospels had been found necessary, do you suppose that 
those corrupt priests would have scrupled to make those 
changes? And did not those priests have every oppor¬ 
tunity to make such changes? Was not the possession 
and the use of the Bible confined exclusively to them¬ 
selves? Had they not all a common interest in deceiving 
the people? Did they not, in their frequent quarrels, 
habitually charge one another with being liars, forgers, 
etc.? And did they not generally prove these charges to 
be true? Did they not, for the glory of God, often engage 
in the holy and delightful occupation of cutting one 
another’s throats, boring out one another’s eyes, cutting 
out one another’s tongues, etc.? Dare my opponents deny 
that this is substantially the history of the Catholic priest¬ 
hood, during the twelve or more centuries in question? 
And are we to be damned if we suspect that such men, 
wdienever they had occasion to do so, mutilated books with 
as little compunction of conscience as they exhibted when 
mutilating one another ? 

It is a well-known fact that the followers of Jesus 
were not, for some time, called Christians; and that when 
they were so called the appellation, Christian, w r as applied 
to them in derision. The first converts, to what was after¬ 
wards called the Christian Beligion, were the Ebeonites 
and the Nazarenes. In the strictest sense of the term, 
these sects were Jews. Their conversion did not involve 
any apostasy from Judaism. They differed from other 
Jews simply in accepting Jesus as the expected Messiah 


78 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


of the Jewish Nation, while the other Jews rejected him 
as an impostor, and still looked for the true Messiah to 
come. These early and true followers of Jesus continued 
to observe all the rites of the Jewish Religion. In this, 
they strictly followed the example of Jesus, who lived and 
died a faithful Jew, who simply labored to purify Judaism, 
not to destroy it; who never embraced or founded any 
other religion, and never authorized his followers to do 
so. My opponents would do well to think of this matter, 
and to remember that, since Jesus himself never went 
outside of Judaism , no one can possibly folloiv him, where 
he never went, outside of that religion. 

It is also a well-known fact that, unlike all other 
nations, the Jews were always strict monotheists; that 
they always looked with horror upon the paganistic doc¬ 
trine of a plurality of gods, and especially so upon the 
degrading and blasphemous doctrine that the gods some¬ 
times increased their own numbers by literally begetting 
offspring upon human females. It is a well-known fact 
that they never did expect their Messiah to be either a 
God, or literally the son of a God; that they always did 
expect him to be a man, begotten and born as are other men, 
but endued from on high, with power to restore the Jewish 
Nation to more, than its pristine glory. More than this, 
they never did expect. 

As I have already said, the Ebeonites and the Nazarenes 
believed that, in the person of Jesus, this expected Mes¬ 
siah—this great and good man—had come. While believ¬ 
ing this, however, they rejected with horror the idea that 
he was, in any sense of the term, a God. Their gospel, 
which Epiplianius and Jerome both claim to have seen, 
seems to have been substantially what is now called the 
“Gospel according to Saint Matthew,” but did not contain 
any portion of the first two chapters of that book, as we 
now have it. In place of these two chapters, it contained 
something quite different, but which is now lost. 

In order to sustain the polytheistic ideas which they 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


79 


brought with them from their old idolatrous religions—in 
order to make Jesus stand, in their new religion , just as 
Prometheus stood in their old , as literally the Son of God , 
and not a # mere man, as taught by the Jewish Christians— 
the gentiles or pagans of Greece, Borne, and other nations, 
when they adopted the name of Christianity, and became 
the ruling power of the Christian Church, found it neces¬ 
sary to make some important changes in the gospels and 
other sacred writings as they had previously existed. 
Among these changes was the forging of those polytheistic 
writings, which now constitute the first two chapters of 
Matthew, and the inserting of them in the place of some¬ 
thing which is now lost, but which was evidently not 
favorable to polytheism, or trinitarianism. 

In making these changes, however, these pagan mutila¬ 
tors utterly failed to give their forged addition to the 
Book of Matthew any connection whatever, in sense or 
otherwise, with the balance of the book. The third chap¬ 
ter opens as follows: “ In those days came John the Bap¬ 
tist, preaching in the wilderness of Judea.” Mark the 
language, “In those days! ” This expression undeniably 
refers to something which, in the order of the narrative, im¬ 
mediately precedes it—'to the description of certain events 
which occurred, not thirty years before, but “in those” 
very “days ” in which John the Baptist appeared in the 
wilderness. But, in our present copies, what does imme¬ 
diately precede this expression? A description of the 
birth of Jesus, and of his flight into Egypt—events that 
occurred thirty years before John appeared in the wilder¬ 
ness. And would the author have kept right on in his 
narrative, and, referring to these events, say that “in 
those days came John the Baptist ? ” Had he said this, 
would he not have lied? Did John come in those days in 
which Jesus was being born, and being carried into Egypt? 
Certainly not. Is it not evident, then, th£t the preceding 
portion of the author’s narrative has been omitted, in 


80 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


order to make room for something which, he never wrote— 
something forged at a later date ? 

The famous Bible critic, Calmet, declares that the sev¬ 
enth and eighth verses of the fifth chapter of the First 
Epistle of John “are not in any ancient Bible.” By ref¬ 
erence to these two verses* we perceive that they are 
clearly intended to sustain that favorite doctrine of the 
pagans—the doctrine of a 'plurality of Gods . These two 
verses, therefore, were evidently forged, and inserted into 
this Epistle, for the same reason that led to the forging of 
the first two chapters of Matthew, and the inserting of 
them into that book. In both cases, the reason evidently 
was nothing more nor less than the fact that such forg¬ 
eries were necessary to sustain the polytheistic or trinita¬ 
rian views of the paganic mutilators who perpetrated 
them. 

By a record in the Cronicon of Muis, it has now been 
proved that a general alteration of the four “ Gospels ” 
was made, in the sixth century, by order of the emperor 
Anastatius, in whose decree we find the following lan¬ 
guage : “ That the Holy Gospels, as written, Idiotis Evan- 
gelistis, are to be corrected and amended.” Scaliger men¬ 
tions this event, and Dr. Mill vouches for the truth of the 
record. If, as literary productions, these books were for¬ 
merly inferior to what they now are, they must, indeed, 
have been written, as Anastatius says they were, by idiotic 
evangelists. Luther seems to have had a similar opinion 
of some of the other writers of the New Testament. At 
any rate, he declared that the Epistle of James was an 
Epistle of straw. 

In the Monthly Repository, the Unitarians denounce 
the first chapter of Matthew, and the first chapter of Luke, 
as being both “absolute falsities.” It is a well-known 
fact, too, that the Catholics and the Protestants mutually 
charge each other with having, in many instances, grosslv 
corrupted the Holy Scriptures, even within the last four 
centuries. 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


81 


In liis “Life of Paul,” Boulanger says: “The Mani- 
'Cheans, who formed a very numerous sect at the com¬ 
mencement of Christianity, rejected as false all the books 
of the New Testament, and showed other writings, quite 
different, which they gave as authentic.” In this same 
work, Boulanger quotes the Christian father, the orthodox 
Bishop Pauste, as declaring that “the books called the 
evangelists have been composed long after the times of the 
apostles, by some obscure men, who, fearing that the 
world would not give credit to their relation of matters of 
which they could not be informed, have published them 
under the name of the apostles; and which are so full of 
sottishness, and discordant relations, that there is neither 
agreement nor connection between them.” Boulanger also 
quotes Fauste as saying to Augustine: “ It is thus that 
your predecessors have inserted in the Scriptures of our 
Lord many things, which, though they carry his name, 
agree not with his doctrine. This is not surprising, since 
that we have often proved these things have not been 
written by himself, nor by his apostles, but, that for the 
greatest part, they are founded upon tales, upon vague 
reports, and put together, by I know not what, half Jews, 
with but little agreement between them, and which they 
have, nevertheless, published under the name of the apos¬ 
tles of our Lord, and have thus attributed to them their 
errors and lies.” This language, which was used about 
the close of the fourth century, by one who had every 
opportunity to be thoroughly acquainted with the facts, 
shows us not only the character of the priest who fixed up 
our New Testament, but also the character of that book 
itself, when it passed from their hands into the hands of a 
long line of equally corrupt successors. If, then, it was 
so fearfully corrupted with “ errors and lies,” at the end of 
the fourth century, when it had only started on its way 
down to our own times, what must have been its condition 
at the end of the fourteenth century, when it had passed 


82 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


for a thousand more years through equally corrupt hands? 
And can its condition be any better now ? 

In his “ Critical History ” of the text of the New Tes¬ 
tament, the celebrated French theologian, M. Simon, says : 
“ We have no solid proof in antiquity to make it appear 
to us that the names set at the head of every gospel 
were thereunto prefixed by those who are the authors of 
them.” M. Simon also says: “ We ought not too easily to 
give credit to first originals of churches (the fathers); 
every one strives to advance their antiquity as much as 
possible, and they make no scruple, on such occasions, to 
counterfeit acts, when they have none that are true.” Du 
Pin and Mosheim both substantially confirm this testi¬ 
mony. 

In his “Introduction to the New Testament,” Dr. 
Clarke specifies fourteen fruitful sources, whence grave 
errors and corruptions inevitably w r ould, and certainly did, 
creep into the New Testament Scriptures before the inven¬ 
tion of printing. Among other things, he says : “ All the 
versions of all countries differ, less or more, among them¬ 
selves, which is a proof that they w r ere formed from differ¬ 
ent MSS., and that those versions exhibit the readings 
which were contained in those manuscripts.” After read¬ 
ing all that he says on the subject, we are not at all sur¬ 
prised when he says, as he does in another place, that he 
merely “ assumes ” that the “ sacred writings are a divine 
record, a revelation from God;' and wdien he declares that 
he has “ purposely avoided the question concerning the 
authenticity of the sacred writings in general.” If, in over 
thirty years of the most indefatigable researches, this 
great and learned man had been able to find any proof that 
these writings were “ a revelation from God," would he 
have had any need to assume that they were so? Would 
he not have given to the world the proof, and not his own 
mere assumption? And if he had not had very serious 
misgivings in regard to the “authenticity of the sacred 
writings in general,” would he have so studiously avoided 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


83 


entering into a discussion of the question of their authen¬ 
ticity ? If he could have made them appear to be authen¬ 
tic, would he not have done so? Does he not virtually 
confess that a discussion of the subject would expose their 
utter want of authenticity ? 

It is an admitted fact that, about the same time that 
the four gospels under consideration made their appear¬ 
ance, some fifty others also made their appearance. Each 
one of these others claimed just as high authority as does 
any one of the four which we now have; and until they 
were condemned, by a party vote , of the first Council of 
Nice, in the year 325, each one of these other gospels had 
about as many advocates as had any one of our four. 

As yet, there was no tribunal, generally recognized as 
possessing power to determine, authoritatively, which ones 
of these numerous gospels should be accepted as the “ In¬ 
spired Word of God,” and which ones should be rejected 
as “base forgeries.” Together with numberless epistles, 
revelations, etc., these various gospels were scattered 
about everywhere, and were severally accepted or rejected, 
enlarged or abridged, preserved or destroyed, according to 
the caprice of the parties into whose hands they chanced 
to fall. As the inevitable result of such a condition of 
affairs, the people all became broken up into a multitude 
of sects intensely hostile toward one another. As has al¬ 
ways been the custom, on such occasions, with religionists 
of every description, these various hostile sects proceeded, 
in the name of God, to butcher and to burn one another, 
in ways too horrible to admit of description. In all these 
bloody conflicts, the victors , as a matter of course, were al¬ 
ways orthodox , tlieir hooks always authentic. The vanquished ,, 
on the other hand, equally as a matter of course, were al¬ 
ways heretical; their hooks always unauthentic. When victory 
changed sides , the orthodoxy of the parties , and the authentic¬ 
ity of their respective sets of hooks, always changed sides at 
the same time. In all cases, God, orthodoxy , and authentic¬ 
ity were on the side of the stronger party. 


84 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Thus you see that, at one time, or in one place, one set 
of books were the “Inspired Word of God,” while at 
another time, or in another place, this same set of books 
became “base forgeries,” and another entirely different 
set of books, which had been “ base forgeries,” became 
the “ Inspired Word of God.” In this way, the legitimate 
workings of the Christian Religion were practically illus¬ 
trated. Starting out thus, it has ever been the most fruit¬ 
ful of all sources of dissensions, of crimes, and of blood¬ 
shed. Even at the present time, the orthodoxy of one sect, 
or of one locality, is frequently the most damnable heresy 
of another sect, or of another locality. While one sect 
denounces eternal damnation against us if we do not be¬ 
lieve certain doctrines, another sect just as emphatically 
denounces eternal damnation against us if we do believe 
those doctrines. Admitting that these equally respect¬ 
able sects are both correct, we are all sure of at least 
one good damning. Most professors of religion will be 
twice damned; once for what they do believe, and once for 
what they do not believe. Of all the damned, these will 
be the most damnably damned. 

It is a well-known fact that the various books of the 
New Testament were never collected into one volume until 
the year 325. Then the Emperor Constantine, bloody 
murderer though he was, grew weary of the incessant dis¬ 
sensions among his Christian subjects, and ordered them 
to determine, in a council of delegates, which ones of their 
many gospels and so-called sacred books should be rejected 
as “base forgeries,” and which ones should be accepted as 
the “Inspired Word of God.” As to Constantine himself, 
he cared very little which set of books were adopted. He 
cared just as little, too, whether the books adopted were 
authentic or otherwise, provided only that they sustained 
his favorite pagan doctrines that there were a plurality of 
gods, and that the gods sometimes increased their own 
numbers by begetting other gods upon human females. 
These purely pagan doctrines, Constantine, who was still 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


85 


a thorough pagan in belief, was determined, by fair means 
or foul, to have engrafted upon Christianity, which, to 
spite the pagan priests with whom he had quarreled, he 
had nominally embraced, a short time before. Beyond the 
adoption of these, his favorite paganistic doctrines, about 
all he cared for was to have peace restored among his own 
subjects, in order that he might the more successfully 
carry on his wars against other nations. 

In compliance with the emperor’s order, there assembled 
at the city of Nice a Council of over three hundred dele¬ 
gates. Of this Council, the murder-blackened pagan, Con¬ 
stantine himself, acted as Chairman. In this Council, all 
the various sects were represented, and each sect strove to 
have their own favorite set of books adopted, as the “ In¬ 
spired Word of God,” and their own favorite creed, as the 
“Orthodox Creed” of the whole Church. In this attempt, 
however, no sect could succeed. No one gospel, even, 
could obtain a majority of votes in its favor. By finally 
combining, however, like, political tricksters, and mutually 
voting in one another’s books, the advocates of Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John were at last successful in their 
efforts to have these books adopted. 

From all this, it is clear that, if a different set of dele¬ 
gates had thus successfully combined, we would have had, 
for our New Testament—for the “ Inspired Word of God—” 
an entirely different set of books—a set which are now 
“base forgeries.” If, by such a combination, these “ base 
forgeries ” had been made the “Inspired Word of God,” 
we would? have had to believe them, or be eternally 
damned. In that case, too, the books of our present New 
Testament would have been “ base forgeries,” and to have 
believed them would have involved certain damnation. 
Indeed, the mere chance of a successful combination of 
delegates in favor of some other set of books, would have 
entirely reversed the respective directions in which salva¬ 
tion and damnation now run. No superior excellence, no 
better claim to authenticity, was established in favor of 


86 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


the set of books which were adopted. As I have already 
shown, their adoption was due simply to the fact that 
their advocates were more skillful tricksters than were the 
advocates of other rival sets of books. Dare my opponents 
deny these facts ? 

Although this Council formed a New Testament, they 
they did not form the New Testament as we now have it. 
Thirty-eight years afterwards, Origen made a new selec¬ 
tion of books, and by his almost unlimited influence in 
the Church, he had this set adopted, by the Council of 
Laodicea, as the only “Genuine Scriptures.” This selec¬ 
tion, which differed materially from that made by the 
Council of Nice, is commonly supposed to have included 
the canonical books in use at the present time. This 
selection, like the former one, was made by the mere votes 
of uninspired men. 

Several of the books selected on this occasion were 
afterwards rejected by the great Council of 406, but w T ere 
replaced by the great Council of 680. Thus, by a majority 
vote of these Councils, the very same books were at some¬ 
times made “base forgeries,” and, at other times, the “In¬ 
spired Word of God.” Indeed, so great a power did these 
Councils finally become, that, by their mere vote, they could 
do almost anything. Just as our city Councils proceed, by 
vote, to enact, to amend, to repeal, or to re-enact ordinances, 
for the government of the city, so did these church 
Councils proceed, by vote, to enact, to amend, to repeal, 
or to re-enact “ Holy Scriptures,” for the government of the 
Church. In the same way, they changed the very nature 
and constitution of things. By a mere vote, they changed 
lies into truths, and truths into lies. By a mere vote, they 
changed genuine writings into base forgeries, and base 
forgeries into genuine writings. By a mere vote, they 
changed bread and wine into the real flesh and blood 
of Jesus. By a mere vote, they created a purgatory, in 
which to confine half-damned sinners. By a mere vote 
(787), they gave bodies to the angels. By a mere vote 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


87 


(1,215), they took these bodies away again, and made it a 
capital offense to teach that the angels ever had any 
bodies. By a mere vote, they gave attributes to God, and 
took attributes from him. By a mere vote, they made 
God a man, and a man God. By a mere vote, they made 
one person three, and three persons one. 

Most of the attributes which God now possesses were 
conferred upon him by a mere vote, and that far from 
unanimous, of the first Council of Nice. These attributes 
are specified in what is called the Nicene or Athanasian 
Creed, and are in force among all orthodox Christians. 
At present, however, I have nothing to do with these 
attributes. 

The Godship of Jesus was also created and conferred 
upon him by a mere vote of less than half of the members 
of this same first Council of Nice. Previous to that time 
a majority of the Christians, as I have already said, were 
strict monotheists, or Unitarians, and regarded Jesus 
simply as a God-like man, and not, in any sense, as a 
God. This was especially the case with the Jewish por¬ 
tion of the Christian Church; and this portion was then 
very numerous. Among the pagan converts, however, 
there was a strong disposition to carry with them, into 
their new religion, some of the prominent and popular 
doctrines of paganism. This was especially the case in 
regard to the doctrine of a plurality of gods, and also in 
regard to the doctrine that old gods sometimes beget 
young ones. 

These pagans, having always been accustomed to many 
gods and demi-gods, of various degrees of removal from 
man, could not now be content with only one God, and he 
the farthest of all removed from themselves. They wished 
that this great and mysterious Being should at least have 
one Son, half human, who, being thus related to them¬ 
selves, would sympathize in their sorrows and infirmities, 
and act as their Mediator with his incomprehensible 
Father. Such a Mediator they had always had in their 


88 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


old religion, and now, if they could only have this precious- 
doctrine of a lialf-human-half-God Mediator engrafted 
upon their new religion, then, in changing their religion, 
they would have very little to do except to insert, in the 
old creeds, the name of Jesus instead of Prometheus, or 
some other one of their demi-god Mediators. With this 
simple change of names, their new religion would be 
substantially the same as their old; the inferior deities 
of their old religion being exactly replaced by the saints 
and the angels of their new religion, to which many of 
them had been converted, by an edict of their emperor, 
without any change in their opinions. 

After this remarkable paganizing of Christianity had 
been accomplished, the pagan temples, by a mere change 
of names, became Christian churches. By a similar 
change of names, the statues of the inferior gods became 
the statues of saints; and, without any greater change, the 
songs, which had been sung in honor of Prometheus, con¬ 
tinued to be sung in honor of Jesus. 

“ Alas ! and did Prometheus bleed, 

And did our Savior die?” etc., 

is one of the many pagan songs adopted by the Christian 
Church, at the same time that she adopted the funda¬ 
mental doctrines of paganism. 

Previous to this paganizing process, the Jews had fur¬ 
nished a large proportion of the converts to Christianity. 
After the completion of this process, however, very few 
Jews were ever converted. They abhorred the paganistic 
idea that there w T ere a plurality of Gods; that old Gods 
sometimes begot young ones on human females; that a 
mere man, a Jew like themselves, had become God him¬ 
self, or, at least, a co-equal with God; that the infinitely 
great and glorious Creator and Sustainer of the Universe 
had ever been a man, a Jew like themselves; that, like 
every other man, he had passed through all the stages of ges¬ 
tation from an invisible life-germ to a perfectly formed child; 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


89 ' 


that he had ever been born of an unmarried woman of the 
lower class; that he had ever been born of a woman whom he 
himself had made; that he had ever been a little helpless 
babe wrapped in swaddling-clothes; that he had ever gone 
through the painful process of teething; that he had ever 
suffered from diarrhoea, measles, scarlatina, and whooping- 
cough ; that he had ever been troubled with worms, which 
he himself had made and pronounced “ very goodthat 
he had ever been dosed with catnip tea and soothing 
syrup, while writhing and squalling from the pangs of 
colic; that he had ever indulged in the use of wine and 
other luxuries to such an extent as to cause himself to be 
called a “glutton and a wine-bibber;” and, finally, that he 
had ever been executed as a malefactor. 

As to the pagans, however, no such thoughts as these 
ever troubled them in the least. To them, none of these 
ideas were either absurd or objectionable. They had 
always been accustomed to the idea of a very materialistic 
intercourse between the gods and certain females of the 
human race. They had always been accustomed, too, to 
the idea that very materialistic results sometimes followed 
this kind of intercourse. With them, these ideas were 
extremely popular. Hence, when they adopted the name 
of Christianity, they did so without relinquishing these 
ideas. In faith, they were still pagans; and, as I have 
already said, when they gained the ascendancy, they 
reduced Christianity, in all but the name, to their old form 
of paganism. 

Chief among the pagan converts, who wished thus to 
engraft upon Christianity the fundamental doctrines of 
their old religion, was the Emperor Constantine. As I 
have already said, he acted as Chairman of the Council of 
Nice—of the Council that thus reduced primitive Chris¬ 
tianity to paganism. Indeed, as I shall yet show, it was 
principally due to his influence that the paganizing process • 
was successfully accomplished. Whatever may have been 


90 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


their own opinions, and their own wishes, the majority of 
that Council did not dare oppose his well-known wishes. 

At the time of that Council he was a very recent con¬ 
vert from the ranks of paganism. Indeed, his conversion 
was merely nominal. He did not even take the trouble to 
pretend that he had experienced any change either of 
heart or of opinions. His conversion was entirely out¬ 
ward, and was dictated by selfish motives alone. Although 
Christian priests have almost deified him, because he did 
so much to elevate them to power, yet he was, in fact, one 
of the most execrable human monsters that ever cursed 
the earth. His hands were almost constantly dripping 
with the warm life-blood of some newly-murdered victim. 
Among many others, he deliberately murdered two of his 
own brothers-in-law, his own father-in-law, and one of his 
own nephews, a boy only twelve years of age. Far worse 
than any of these, however, was the murder of his own 
son, Crispus, a worthy young man, and the unspeakably 
horrible murder of his own wife, whom he boiled to death 
in hot water. One of these last murders is said to have 
been committed while he was sitting as Chairman of the 
Council whose vote made our New Testament the “ In¬ 
spired Word of Godwhose vote made Jesus the “ Son of 
Godwhose vote established the “ Nicene Creed,” upon 
which all orthodox Christianity still rests. 

After Constantine had committed several atrocious 
murders, he applied for absolution to the pagan priests, 
who refused to grant it, on the ground that crimes of so 
great enormity were beyond their jurisdiction. This re¬ 
fusal seriously offended him, and, for revenge, he deserted 
the pagans, whose patron he had hitherto been, and went 
over to their rivals, the Christians. The Christian priests 
received him with open arms, granted him absolution, and 
made him the head of their church; and this position he 
•continued to hold during the balance of his life, notwith¬ 
standing the notorious fact that he still continued to be 
guilty of the most atrocious of crimes. 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


91 


From all tliese facts, which I suppose no one acquainted 
^with Constantine’s history will deny, you perceive that his 
so- called conversion involved no change in either his faith 
or his character. In his faith, he was still a pagan; in his 
character, still a murderer. And this blood-dyed monster 
was the great ” First Christian Emperor,” the pride of the 
Christian Church. Indeed, he may justly be regarded as 
the father—as the maker of that church in its paganized 
form. Under his direct control, the most paganistic of the 
many gospels, epistles, etc., with which the country was 
flooded, were voted to be the “ Inspired Word of God.” 
Under his direct control, Jesus was voted to be the “ Son 
of God;” and, by this vote, the fundamental pagan doc¬ 
trines of polytheism and demi-godism were inseparably 
fixed upon what is erroneously called the Christian Relig¬ 
ion. Indeed, as I have already said, it was principally 
through the instrumentality of this monster that Chris¬ 
tianity, so-called, became what it has been, and wliat it 
still is. He elevated it to power; and, in so doing, he 
ushered in the “Dark Ages”—a thousand years of Bible 
supremacy, a millennium of Christianity, a vast period of 
the world’s history, all black, as the darkest midnight, 
with ignorance, superstition, rapine, bloodshed, untold suf¬ 
ferings, and nameless crimes. 

Although I cannot now name my authority, yet I have 
somewhere read that Jesus was made the “Son of God” 
by a minority vote of that first Council of Nice; that 
many of the delegates who would have opposed the con¬ 
ferring of divine honors upon this man, or upon any other 
human being, were so much intimidated by the blood¬ 
thirsty Emperor and his party, that they did not vote at 
all Had these delegates voted, the proposition to confer 
Godship upon Jesus would have been defeated, and it 
would have been to-day a horrible form of idolatry to wor¬ 
ship him as, in any sense, a God. 

The events that followed the breaking up of that mem¬ 
orable Council fully justified the fears of those delegates 


92 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


who refused to vote at all on the proposition to confer 
divine honors upon Jesus. Arius and the others who did 
vote against this monstrous proposition, together with all 
that portion of the church that sustained them in their 
brave and righteous action, were hunted down, like wild 
beasts, and almost exterminated. For having thus so suc¬ 
cessfully and so unfairly exercised his powerful influence 
in their favor, the paganistic polytheists, or trinitarians of 
the present day, who claim to be the only orthodox Chris¬ 
tians, should even yet, by a vote, make Constantine a 
saint, just as he, by a vote, made Jesus a God, and the 
most thoroughly paganistic of all the gospels, epistles, 
etc., then extant, the “Inspired Word of God.” 

In justice to Constantine, however, I will say that he 
was by no means the only unscrupulous man that consti¬ 
tuted a portion of that memorable Council. As is usual 
with all those great monarchs who are the most blood¬ 
thirsty tyrants, he was surrounded by vast swarms of vile 
sycophants, who, in all things, acted only as he prompted. 
So far as he w T as able to do so, he had that Council com¬ 
posed of these sycophants, his own pliable instruments. 
The result was that, in that Council, confusion and vio¬ 
lence seem to have been the order of the day. The vilest 
epithets were hurled back and forth, from one member to 
another; and, at times, even bishops fell foul of one 
another, with all the insane fury of drunken desperadoes 
in a gambling den or a cock-pit. 

In his “ Eights of the Christian Church,” Tindal quotes 
St. Gregory Nazianzen as saying, in his letter to Proco¬ 
pius, “ that he fled all assemblies of bishops, because he * 
never saw a good and happy end of any Council, but that 
they did rather increase than lessen the evil; that the love 
of contention and ambition always overcomes their rea¬ 
son.” After repeating his determination, never again 
to attend any council, Nazianzen, in further explanation 
of this determination, says that it is “because nothing 
is to be heard there but geese and cranes, who fight, 



THE NEW TESTAMENT 


93 


without understanding one another/’ A fine description, 
truly, of the men whose vote made Jesus the “ Son of God,” 
and the New Testament the ‘ Inspired Word of God!” 

Of this same first Council oi Nice, Tindal himself says: 
“ And if these accusations and libels which the Bishops at 
the Council of Nice gave in of one another to the Em¬ 
peror, were now extant, in all probability, we should have 
such rolls of scandal, that few would have much reason to 
boast of the first Ecumenical Council, where, with such 
heat, passion, and fury, the bishops fell foul on one 
another, insomuch that had not the Emperor by a trick 
burnt their church memorials, probably they must have 
broke up ip confusion! After that Council was over, the 
Bishops made so great a bustle, and disturbance, and were 
so unruly, that the good Emperor was forced to tell them 
4 that if they would not be more quiet and peaceable for the 
future, he would no longer continue his expedition against 
the Infidels, but must return to keep them in order.’ ” 
How do my opponents like this description of the Coun¬ 
cil upon whose vote they depend for their Scriptures, and 
for their “ Son of God ? ” And this is the language of an 
eminent Christian writer, who had thoroughly studied the 
history of that Council. ‘‘Had not the Emperor by a 
trick burnt their Church memorials”—had the Council 
actually “broke up in confusion*” where would have been 
the New Testament, the divinity of Jesus, and the Chris¬ 
tian Religion, at the present time? And what would our 
priests have been doing for a livelihood ? What a blessed 
trick that was, to which we owe all these things! 

Of these same holy men, Tindal further says: “ Indeed, 
the confusion and disorder were so great amongst them, 
especially in their synods, that it sometimes came to 
blows; as, for instance, Dioscorus, Bishop of Alexandria, 
cuffed and kicked Flavianus, Patriarch of Constantinople 
(at the second Synod of Ephesus), with that fury that within 
three days after he died.” Of these same men, Tindal still 
further says: “ For though they w r ere most obstinate as to 


94 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


power, they were most flexible as to faith, and in their 
councils complimented the Emperor with whatsoever creeds 
they had a mind to, and never scrupled to recant what 
they had before enacted, or to re-enact what they had be¬ 
fore recanted. Nay, so variable were they* that St. Hilary, 
Bishop of Poictiers, says that ‘ since the Nicene Synod, we 
do nothing but write creeds; that while we fight about 
words; while we raise questions about novelties; while 
we quarrel about things doubtful, and about authors, 
while we contend in parties, there is almost none that is 
Christ’s. We decree every year of the Lord a new creed 
concerning God; nay, every change of the moon our faith 
is altered.’ ” A fine description, truly! 

And are my opponents absolutely certain that these 
disorderly and contentious creed-making and creed-chang¬ 
ing individuals either could or would, by their strictly 
partisan voting, infalliby select, for our New Testament, 
all those books, and those only, which were* written by in¬ 
spiration of God ? Could such men, and would they, infal¬ 
libly assign to God, in their creeds, all his real attributes, 
and none others ? If they either could not, or would not, 
do these things with infallible correctness; if, from so vast 
a number of books, all claiming equally high authority, 
they selected some that were spurious, and rejected some 
that were genuine, then, my Christian friends, are you not, 
in accepting their selection, rejecting a portion, at least, of 
God’s Holy Word? And are you not, at the same time, 
staking your eternal salvation, in part at least, upon “ base 
forgeries?” 

If, however, on the other hand, these men actually 
could, and would, and did, by their partisan votes, in¬ 
fallibly select all the inspired books and no others, then 
the case is no better; since, in this case, the Council of 
Laodicea, which met thirty-eight years afterwards, in 
rejecting, as they certainly did, a portion of this selection, 
necessarily rejected genuine writings; and, in selecting, 
as they certainly did, other writings, they necessarily 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


95 


selected those that were spurious. Since, then, this latter 
selection constitutes our New Testament, this book must, 
of necessity, be destitute of some of the inspired writings, 
and must, of equal necessity, be in part filled with writ¬ 
ings that are spurious. My Christian friends must see 
that, in any view of the case, they are rejecting a portion 
of the “Inspired Word of God,” and, in its stead, are 
accepting the “lying words of men.” And is this the way 
in which to attain salvation? It would do no good to 
attempt to set up the claim of inspiration for those two 
Councils. They did not set up any such claim for them¬ 
selves. Beside this, if they had been inspired, would not 
the members of each of those Councils have agreed among 
themselves, and would the two councils have so widely 
disagreed ? 

If, however, you wish to set up the claim that those 
books were selected by direct miracle, you can do so with 
comparative safety. This claim you can easily prove. It 
is a well-known fact that, at the time of which we are 
speaking, the priests were more generally engaged, if 
possible, in the manufacturing of miracles, than they were 
in the forging of books. Indeed, in those days, the priest 
who could not, and did not, perform miracles was a total 
failure. To the credit of the priesthood, however, it must 
be said that such failures, among them, were extremely 
rare. While it required much time, and some talent, to 
forge a book, almost any priest of that time could, and 
did, on very short notice, perform miracles whenever it 
was to his interest to do so. And here is the one that was 
manufactured for the express purpose of proving to the 
world that all the inspired books, and none others, were 
selected by the Council of which we are speaking. This 
miracle is given, in all seriousness, by Pappius. In his 
“Synodicum of the Council of Nice,” he says that the 
selection of books was made “by placing all the books 
under a communion table, and, upon the prayers of the 
Council, the inspired books jumped upon the table, while the 


96 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


false ones remained under. ” This is certainly very stunning 
proof, and since, so far as I have been able to learn, it is 
all you have on the subject, you are heartily welcome to it. 

How unfortunate it is, however, that many of these 
inspired books, thus infallibly selected by miracle, were 
thrown out thirty-eight years afterwards, by the Council of 
Laodicea, and their places, among our “Holy Scriptures,” 
supplied by non-jumping books, which, of necessity, were 
spurious! This leaves us still destitute of a portion of 
“God 4 s Holy Word,” and with our Bible filled, in part, 
with the “lying words of men.” How strange it is that 
with so high a precedent before them, this latter Council 
did not also resort to the method of testing the genuine¬ 
ness of books by making them jump ! 

Since the Council of Nice thought of resorting to such 7 
a test, they must, of course, have known beforehand that, 
like rats, genuine books could, and when properly manip¬ 
ulated would, jump upon a table. From the fact, too, 
that a direct miracle was thus absolutely necessary to 
distinguish between the genuine and the spurious books, 
it becomes unpleasantly evident that the “Inspired Word 
of God ” was not, in any visible respect, superior to the 
“lying word of men.” 

In his “ Ecclesiastical History,” Tillemont declares that 
“ without Eusebius, we should scarce have had any knowl¬ 
edge of the history of the first ages of Christianity, or of 
the authors who wrote at that time.” In regard to Euse¬ 
bius, most other waiters, who have occasion to mention 
him at all, make substantially the same admission. It be¬ 
comes a matter of the highest importance, then, that we 
know something of the character for truthfulness of this 
man upon whom so much depends. Unfortunately, we 
find that, in this respect, his character was very far from 
good. Of himself he says: “ I have related whatever 
might redound to the glory , and I have suppressed all that 
could tend to the disgrace , of our religion .” In doing this 
he w r as certainly very prudent as a priest, but was he hon- 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


97 


est as a historian ? He admits that he is not a reliable 
witness; that he would not tell “ the truth, the whole truth, 
and nothing but the truth.” He also admits that the con¬ 
dition of the church was much worse than he has made it 
appear. What, then, must the true condition of the 
church have been, when, after suppressing all that he 
thought could tend to disgrace the church, and relating 
only that which he thought would redound to its glory, he 
has made it appear that the great body of the church was 
composed of persons so vicious that they needed to be 
deceived, and so ignorant that they could be deceived, 
while the priesthood was composed of consummate liars 
and deceivers? If all this tends, as he thought it would, 
to the glory of the church, what must that have been 
which he suppressed, and which would have tended to dis¬ 
grace the church? If the very best was so bad as this, 
what must the worst have been ? 

In the twelfth Book of his “ Evangelical Preparation,” 
he devotes an entire chapter to proving, or attempting to 
prove, that falsehood ought to be used whenever the inter¬ 
ests of the church require it. As the heading of his 
thirty-first chapter, we also find the following: “ How far 
it may be proper to use falsehood as a medicine, and for 
the benefit of those who require to be deceived.” Before 
we are justifiable in believing anything that he says, there¬ 
fore, we must know “how far” he thought it “proper to 
use falsehood, as a medicine,” in his own writings, and to 
what extent he thought those for whom he wrote required 
“to be deceived.” The Christian writer, Baronius, calls 
him “the great falsifier of ecclesiastical history—a wily 
sycophant—a consummate hypocrite, a time-serving perse¬ 
cutor, who had nothing in his known life, or writings, to 
support the belief that he himself believed in the Chris¬ 
tian Religion.” And yet this is the man upon whom we 
almost entirely depend for all our knowledge of the early 
Christians. 


98 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


In his thirty-third sermon, St. Augustine says that,, 
while he was Bishop of Hippo Regius, he preached to a 
whole nation of men and women who had no heads , but 
who had eyes in their bosoms. It is probably well that 
these people had no heads; for, if they had possessed 
these convenient, but as it appears, totally unnecessary, 
appendages to the human body, they would not have been 
likely to listen to Augustine’s preaching. This same man, 
whose veracity no Christian can consistently call in ques¬ 
tion, also says that he preached to another nation in which 
each individual had but one eye , and that in the middle of 
the forehead. This famous saint, this pillar of the church, 
declares—and truthfully, too, no doubt—that these stories 
of his are as true as the gospel, and stakes his eternal sal¬ 
vation upon their being facts. Although the good saint 
does not tell us how high the men of the last named nation 
were, yet they were doubtless at least a hundred feet high, 
and were the very same people into whose hands that 
other equally truthful person, Sindbad the Sailor, declares 
that he fell in one of his wanderings. Captain Gulliver 
also declares that, in one of his travels, he, too, fell in with 
a nation of people similar to these in size. Unlike those 
described by Augustine, however, Gulliver’s giants, whom 
he calls Brobdignagians, had two good eyes properly 
placed. Gulliver, whose veracity as a historian no Chris¬ 
tian should ever again have the audacity to call in ques¬ 
tion, beats Augustine a little, since he declares tliat he 
also fell in with another nation of people, whom he calls 
Liliputians, who were only a few inches high. Why, then, 
has not Gulliver, as well as Augustine, been made a saint ? 

As quoted by Origen, Celsus says that the early fath¬ 
ers “ altered the gospel three or four different times, as 
if they were drunk, and when pressed by their adversaries 
recurred to that reading which best suited their pur¬ 
pose.” And will my opponents be so kind as to inform us 
which copy of these “ altered ” gospels has come down 
to our own times ? 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


99 


St. Hernias, one of St. Paul’s co-laborers, declares that, 
having confessed himself guilty of deliberately lying to 
the people, the angel of the Lord, to whom he made the 
confession, said: “ As the lie was up now, he had better 
keep it up, and as in time it would come to be believed, it 
would answer as well as t v utli.” How wonderfully con¬ 
venient to the priesthood was this beautiful doctrine! 

St. Hermas probably acquired his habit of pious lying 
during his association with that greatest of all saints, St. 
Paul himself, who, when charged with lying, so far from 
denying the charge, simply proceeds to justify his lying, 
on the ground that the “glory of God ” has thereby been 
promoted. In Rom. iii, 7, we read : “ For if the truth of 
God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory , 
why yet am I also judged as a sinner ?” Sure enough! 
Why should he have been “judged as a sinner,” when the 
“ lie,” for which he was thus “ judged,” had been told 
“unto his (God’s) glory?” As if it could be a sin to “ lie 
unto” God’s “glory!” No wonder the good saint asks 
this question in a tone of so much surprise and injured 
innocence! 

In 2 Cor. xii, 16, Paul boastingly says to some of his 
converts: “Being crafty, I caught you with guile” But 
what is it to be crafty? Webster says it is to be “ skillful 
in deceiving others.” And what is guile? Webster says 
it is “ duplicity ” or “ deceit.” Paul then boasts that 
being skillful in deceiving others, he had, by means of 
duplicity, “ caught,” or inveigled whole congregations of 
credulous dupes into the church. And with so illustrious 
a liar and deceiver for their model, how much better could 
the early fathers of the church have been expected to be 
than they actually were ; and, with all the holy deceivers 
for their models, how could we expect the priesthood of 
the present day to be, as a rule, otherwise than they actu¬ 
ally are ? 

In his work entitled, “Use of the Fathers,” Daille says 
that the fathers “ made no scruples to forge luhole books” 


100 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


He also says that we find the fathers “saying things which 
they did not themselves believe. They are mutually 
witnesses against each other that they are not to be be¬ 
lieved.” In his reply to Priestly, Bishop Horsley corrob- 
xates this testimony in the following strong language: 
“Time was when the practice of using unjustifiable means 
to serve a good cause was openly avoived, and Origen himself 
was among its defenders .” 

In his “De Script. Interpret.,” the celebrated Dr. 
Whitby complains of Irenseus and Father Papias for hav¬ 
ing, as he says, “handed down the actions of the apostles 
and their disciples from paltry rumors, and dubious re¬ 
ports, and as having scandalously deluded the world with 
fables and lying narrations.” And yet this scandalous de- 
luder of the world* Iremeus, is the very man back to whom 
we can trace "the “ Four Gospels,” but beyond whom we 
can find no trace whatever to show that they ever had any 
existence till they came from his own hands. Originating 
thus, so far as we know, with himself, may not these “Four 
Gospels,” be among the “ fables and lying narrations ” 
with which he has so “ scandalously deluded the world ? ” 
Would he any more scruple to scandalously delude the 
world with these books than he would with any others? 
Be all this as it may, however, it is a well established fact 
that, at the time they were introduced to the world by 
Irengeus, these “Four Gospels” were denounced as “fables 
and lying narrations,” by a large portion of the Chris¬ 
tian Church, who had other and older gospels which 
they held to be the “ Inspired Word of God! ” Indeed, so 
strong proofs of forgery were adduced against these four 
books, that their advocates found it necessary to silence 
the witnesses in death. 

As I have already stated, no special preference seems to 
have been given to these four books, until they v r ere 
adopted by a partial vote of the first Council of Nice, 
nearly one hundred and fifty years after they were intro¬ 
duced by Irengeus. And now, let me ask, when the Chris- 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


101 


tian Church was teaching, as of equal authority, some fifty 
different gospels, which ones of them would we have had 
to believe in order to escape damnation? Did God never 
commence damning people for believing in any of the other 
gospels until after they were all rejected by the vote of a 
small majority of that disgraceful first Council of Nice? 
And did he never commence damning them for not believ¬ 
ing in these four gospels, until after they were adopted by 
the vote of a small majority of that same Council? Is 
God, in his favorite amusement of damning people, con¬ 
trolled by the votes of Councils? If not, on what authority 
do you teach that we are to be damned, if we reject these 
four gospels ? 

On page 479 of the Eclectic Review of 1814, we read: 
“ When we consider the number of the gospels, acts, epis¬ 
tles, revelations, traditions, and constitutions which were 
put in circulation during the first three centuries, and 
which were unquestionably spurious , we find sufficient reason 
for examiming with care , and receiving with extreme caution, 
productions attributed to eminent men in the primitive 
church. Some of the early Christians do not appear to 
have possessed, in some points, a very nice sense of moral 
obligation. The writing of books under false names, and 
the circulating of fables, were not accounted violations of 
duty, or if the impropriety of such conduct was felt, the 
end proposed—the promotion of the Christian cause—was 
thought to justify the means employed for its accomplish¬ 
ment.” 

In his “Oper,” tom. 4, page 113, St. Jerome, the author 
of the Vulgate, says: “Ido not find fault with an error 
which proceeds from a hatred towards the Jews , and a 
pious zeal for the Christian faith” St. Gregory Nazianzen, 
Bishop of Constantinople, seems also to have held this 
same view. At any rate, he frankly admits to Jerome 
that, in his opinion, “a littl Q jargon is all that is necessary 
to impose upon the people. The less they comprehend, 
the more they admire! Our forefathers and doctors of the 


102 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


church have very often said, not what they thought, but, 
what circumstances and necessity dictated to them.” St. Sy- 
nesius also declares that “ the people are desirous of being 
deceived. We cannot act otherwise respecting them.” 
This same candid saint further says: “ For my own part, 
to myself, I shall always be a philosopher, but, in dealing 
with the mass of mankind , I shall be a priest” 

In his “ Ecclesiastical History,” Mosheim declares of 
the celebrated Justin Martyr, that “ much of what Justin 
says is wholly undeserving of credit .” Indeed, in part 2, and 
chap, iii, of the same history, Mosheim, speaking of the 
general condition of the church during the fourth century, 
makes use of the following remarkable language, which is 
the last evidence I shall adduce in my present lecture: 
“ The interest of virtue and true religion suffered yet more 
grievously by the monstrous errors that were almost uni¬ 
versally adopted in this century, and became a source of 
innumerable calamities and mischiefs in the succeeding 
ages. The first of these maxims was 4 that it was an act of 
virtue to deceive and lie, when, by that means, the interest 
of the church might be promoted ; ’ and the second, equally 
horrible, though in another point of view, was 4 that errors 
in religion, when maintained and adhered to after proper 
admonition, were punishable with civil penalties and cor¬ 
poreal tortures.’ The former of these erroneous maxims 
was now of long standing. It had been adopted for some 
ages past, and had produced an incredible number of ridic- 
ulons fables, fictitious prodigies, and pious frauds, to the 
unspeakable detriment of that glorious cause in which 
they were employed. And it must be frankly confessed 
that the greatest men and most eminent saints of this cen¬ 
tury were more or less tainted with the infection of this 
corrupt principle, as will appear evident to such as look, 
with an attentive eye, to their writings and actions. We 
would willingly except from this charge Ambrose and Hil- 
iarv, Augustine, Gregory, Nazianzen, and Jerome; but 
truth, which is more respectable than these venerable 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


103 


fathers, obliges us to involve them in the general accusa¬ 
tion.” As translated by Yidal, Mosheim further declares: 
“ At the time when he (Hermias) wrote, it was an estab¬ 
lished maxim with many of the Christians to avail them¬ 
selves of fraud and deception , if it was likely they would 
conduce towards the attainment of any considerable good.” 
“And it was considered,” says he again, “that they who 
made it their business to deceive , with a view of promoting 
the cause of truth, were deserving rather of commendation 
than censure!! ” What delightful doctrines for priests! 

And this is the testimony of one of the highest author¬ 
ities of the church, concerning the very men to whom we 
are indebted for the New Testament, for the doctrine of 
the Trinity—for all there is of Christianity. And can you, 
in the annals of the whole world, point out a single relig¬ 
ion that originated with men of a worse character for 
moral honesty? If these bigoted religionists—these pro¬ 
fessional liars, deceivers, and forgers, believed that the 
forging and putting forth of such books as are found in 
the New Testament would conduce to the “ interest of the 
church,” were they not, according to their own maxims, 
bound, as a solemn duty, to forge and put forth those 
books? Would they not have regarded such an act as in 
the highest degree meritorious? Would they then have 
been at all likely to omit the performance of this act? Is 
it not a universally admitted fact that they did thus piously 
forge and put forth an “incredible number” of such 
books ? And have I not proved, beyond all reasonable 
contradiction, that the books of the New Testament were 
no exceptions to the general rule; that they were mere 
selections, made by the vote of uninspired and notoriously 
corrupt men, from among the “incredible number” of 
“ unquestionably spurious ” books with which the whole 
country, at that time, was flooded? And this proof I have 
made, too, with less than a hundredth part of the testi¬ 
mony that might be adduced to the same effect. O ye 
blinded, bigoted, intolerant religionists, when will you 


104 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED'. 


cease to regard as tlie “ Inspired Word of God ” these 
“absurd fables”—these “lying narrations?” When will 
you cease your cruel persecutions of those whose reason 
and common sense compel them to reject all these things? 

And now, in conclusion, I -wish to acknowlege that for 
many of the historical facts contained in this lecture, I am 
indebted to the researches of other parties, and especially 
to those of that able writer, Robert Cooper. Except when 
making direct quotations, I have not thought best to bur¬ 
den this, or any other of my lectures, by giving my authority 
in every instance. Those who are well posted in regard 
to the matters under consideration do not need any refer¬ 
ences to authority; and those who are not thus well 
posted would not be likely to make any use of those ref¬ 
erences. I wish also to state that, in all my lectures, I 
frequently mark, as emphatic, certain words in quoted 
language, which are not so marked in the original, and 
that I frequently do this without mentioning the fact at 
the time. 


LECTURE FOURTH 

NEW TESTAMENT.—(CONCLUDED.) 

In my last lecture, by the very best of external evidence,, 
I fully proved that the various books of the New Testa¬ 
ment, and especially the gospels, are totally unworthy of 
belief. In my present lecture, I shall, in like manner, by 
the very best of internal evidence, prove the same fact. 
Without any further introductory remarks, therefore, I 
will call your attention to the first chapter of Matthew, in 
which we find, given by name, twenty-eight generations, 
from David to Christ, including the names of both these 
persons. Now, noting the time over which these genera¬ 
tions are made to extend, we find that it gives an average 
of forty years as the age of each of these men,, at the time 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


105 


his son in this line was born. When we reflect that forty 
years were more than the average length of the entire 
lives of men during that period, we are bound to admit 
that Matthew’s account is very improbable 

Our priests, it is true, attempt to evade this difficulty, 
by claiming that Matthew omits several names that should 
appear in this genealogy. Indeed, by reference to certain 
portions of the Old Testament, they clearly prove that 
some such omissions were certainly made. In other 
words, they clearly prove that Matthew lies, when he so 
positively declares that “all the generations” from David 
to Christ are “ twenty-eight.” 

Professing to give the genealogy of the same person, 
Luke gives by name forty-three generations between David 
and Christ, these two persons being included. Here, then, 
in the genealogy of the same person, we have an utterly 
irreconcilable discrepancy of fifteen generations. This is 
truly a bad beginning. Although these two accounts may 
both be false, they can not possibly both be true . If “all 
the generations,” from David to Jesus, were only “twenty- 
eight,” as given by Matthew, there could not possibly have 
been, at the same time, forty-three of them, as given by 
Luke. 

The case becomes much worse, however, when we dis¬ 
cover that, with the exception of Jesus, Joseph, and David, 
these two authors give entirely different sets of men. Since 
it is utterly impossible for the same individual to have 
descended through both of these lines of ancestors, it is 
evidently equally impossible for both of these accounts to 
be true. If, then, either one of them be true, which one 
is it, and why do you continue to teach the other one, 
which you know is bound to be false, as a portion of the 
“Inspired Word of God?” Does God inspire men to 
write lies? 

Matthew positively declares that “Jacob begat Joseph 
the husband of Mary.” Luke, however, just as positively 
declares that Joseph was “the son of Hell” This is 


106 


TJIE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


indeed, a strange affair: Joseph the son of two different 
fathers!! Was he a partnership child? Was he so hard 
to beget that it took two men to beget him ? If not, 
could his mother have been in any doubt as to who his 
father was ? In any case, should not inspiration have set 
Matthew and Luke right on the subject? Can both 
accounts be true ? 

I am aware that certain theologians, with an effrontery 
that is truly wonderful, attempt to evade this difficulty, as 
they do most others, by bare-faced assumptions. Without 
a particle of evidence upon which to base their assump¬ 
tions, they assume that, although, as Matthew says, 
“Jacob begat Joseph,” he did this, not for himself, but for 
his friend and relative , Heli, who was unable to beget him¬ 
self a son, and who, but for this timely assistance, would 
never have had any son at all. What a beautiful doctrine! 
With this heavenly example before us, should not every 
man who can beget sons come promptly to the aid of his 
neighbors who cannot? It is quite probable, indeed, that 
this example is more extensively followed than is usually 
supposed, and that many men who are now happy fathers 
of hopeful sons, have been made so in this generous 
manner. Probably every one of you can think of one or 
two cases of this kind. 

Having thus, as they claim, settled this question, these 
theologians, with a great deal of self-complacency, proceed 
to inform us that Matthew gives Joseph’s genealogy 
through the line of Jacob , his begetter, while Luke gives his 
genealogy through the line of Heli, his father . Again we 
are ready to exclaim, Beautiful doctrine! 

But why are these two genealogies given at all ? Sim¬ 
ply to make it appear, if possible, that to Jesus are appli¬ 
cable certain vague passages of the Old Testament, usually 
called prophecies. These so-called prophecies seem to 
relate to some important personage of the seed of David . 
In order to make these so-called prophecies seem to be 
applicable to Jesus, therefore, he had to be made a lineal 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


107 


descendant of David. To establish for Jesus this necessary 
descent is the common object of these two genealogies, 
■each of which claims to be the true, and, from the very 
nature of the case, the only true, line through which he 
derived his descent from David. It is evident, then, that 
the one of these lines through which he did not descend 
is a “ base forgery,” palmed off upon the too credulous 
people as a portion of the “Inspired Word of God.” 

It is evident, too, that if Jesus did not literally descend 
through either of these lines —if he was not literally a lineal 
descendant of David± both these genealogies are bound to 
be, of necessity, “base forgeries.” If, however, either of 
these genealogies be true—if Jesus was, in fact, a lineal 
descendant of David , then, of necessity, he was a mere man , 
as the earlier Christians held that he was. As I stated in 
my last lecture, most of these Christians were Jews, and 
differed from other Jews only in holding that in Jesus had 
come the Messiah expected by the Jewish nation. This 
Messiah having to be of the seed of David, these Chris¬ 
tian Jews w r ere especially anxious to establish for Jesus 
a literal descent, as a man, from David. If Jesus was 
not thus descended from David—if he was begotten by a 
ghost , as our priests now teach that he was, and not by a 
man- —not by a lineal descendant of David , then to him can¬ 
not possibly be applied those so-called prophecies in ques¬ 
tion. It cannot strengthen the claims of Jesus any to 
show, by certain genealogies, that certain other persons, in 
no way related to him by blood, were descended from 
David. As well might you attempt to strengthen those 
claims by giving the pedigree of Balaam’s ass. 

From all this, it is evident that my opponents must 
either give up the doctrine that the so-called prophecies 
in question refer to Jesus—must admit that both the gen- 
alogies which make Jesus a descendant of David are for¬ 
geries—or else give up the paganistic doctrine that Jesus 
was literally the son of God. I defy them to escape from 
Fhis dilemma into which they have fallen by absurdly 


108 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


attempting to apply to the same individual the so-called 
prophecies of the strictly monotheistic Jews, and the 
polytheistic pagan doctrine of demi-gods. 

In Matt, i, 11, we read: “And Josias begat Jechonias 
and his brethren, about the time they were carried away 
to Babylon.” By reference to the last two chapters of 2 
Chronicles, however, we learn that Josias died over twenty 
years before “they were carried away to Babylon,” and 
that he never “begat Jechonias and his brethren” at all. 
If, then, the author of Chronicles be worth anything as a 
witness, Matthew again stands before us a convicted liar. 

Strangely enough, Mark and John are entirely silent 
in regard to the miraculous conception and birth of Jesus. 
This strange silence on their part is extremely unfortunate, 
since the accounts given of these important matters by 
Matthew and Luke are so hopelessly at variance with 
each other that we find it difficult to believe either one of 
them. 

While Luke has the “annunciation” made to Mary 
herself, in advance of conception, Matthew has it made in 
a dream to Joseph, her lover, after she had been “ found 
with child.” While Luke has Mary and her friends, from 
the very beginning, all well aware of her condition, and all 
highly pleased with it—while he has no need of a dream 
to set Joseph or any one else right on the subject—Matthew 
has her, like a guilty woman, conceal her condition, as 
long as possible—has her at last detected, or “ found with 
child,” and then has her totally unable to explain, to the 
satisfaction of her lover at least, how she came to be in 
that rather unmaidenly condition. Hence the necessity, 
on Matthew’s part, of having Joseph dream that she was 
with child of a certain ghost who, if he had ever before 
been heard of at all, had certainly never before appeared 
in the doubtful role of putative father of an unmarried 
woman’s baby. 

From Matthew’s account, it is evident that the finding 
of Mary “with child ” created a good deal of scandal. So 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


109 


much, at any rate, that, previous to his dream, Joseph had 
no doubt at all that she was a guilty woman. If either she 
herself, or her friends for her, attempted any explanation 
of her embarrassing condition, that would tend to exonerate 
her from the imputation of guilt, it is evident that Joseph 
did not give the slightest credit to that explanation. 
Although said to be a very “just man,” he nevertheless 
fully intended to have Mary punished for the grave offense 
of being “with child” by some party to himself unknown. 
The punishment, too, which he proposed to inflict upon 
her seems to have been nothing less than death. Being 
her betrothed husband, he had a legal right to inflict this 
punishment upon her, for the offense of which she ap¬ 
peared to be undeniably guilty, and the expressions “ to 
make her a public example,” and “to put her aw r ay 
privily,” seem to refer simply to different modes of put¬ 
ting her to death, or out of the way. 

Let the proposed punishment have been what it may, 
however, it is evident that Joseph did not, for a moment, 
think of letting her escape it. He simply hesitated as to 
whether her punishment should be “public,” as “an 
example” to others, or private, as a mere satisfaction to 
the laws which she had transgressed. “But while he 
thought on these things [these two different modes of 
punishment], behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto 
him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear 
not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is 
conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.” This dream 
changed Joseph’s whole intended course of procedure. 
From this fact, it is evident that, previous to liis dream, 
he had not the slightest suspicion that she was “with 
child of the Holy Ghost.” Indeed, had he already been 
in possession of this fact (?) he would not have needed to 
have it communicated to him in a dream, and would not 
have thought of such a thing as making “her a public 
example,” or even of putting “her away privily.” On the 
•contrary, he would have thought—as, after his dream, he 


110 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


did think—only of honoring her as one favored of Heaven, 
above all others of womankind. 

In the latter part of the eighteenth verse of this same 
chapter, we read that Mary “ was found with child of the 
Holy Ghost.” From what I have just said, however, con¬ 
cerning Joseph’s belief in her guilt, and his intention to 
punish her, it is evident that neither Mary, for herself, 
nor those who “found” her “with child,” for her, had as 
yet set up any such claim as Holy-Ghost pregnancy. At 
any rate, it is evident that, if any such claim had been set 
up, Joseph, who knew the parties and the circumstances 
much better than we possibly can know them, had not a 
particle of faith in the justness of that claim. In his eyes, 
Mary was still guilty, and he still intended to punish her. 
The phrase “of the Holy Ghost,” then, which we now find 
at the end of the already complete sentence which I have 
quoted, is evidently a forgery, as many Bible critics admit 
that it is, and was added, at a later date, to strengthen the 
proof of the divine paternity of Jesus. 

If the fact that her unborn child was of the “ Holy 
Ghost ” had been already established, by Mary herself, or 
by those who found her “with child,” why did Joseph 
have to learn this fact in a dream ? Was not he, above 
all others, the very person whom Mary and her friends 
would be most anxious to have convinced of her inno¬ 
cence ? Did not her very life depend upon his being thus 
convinced ? If, then, Mary and her friends had had a par¬ 
ticle of proof that her pregnancy was the work of the 
“Holy Ghost”—whoever he was—would they not at once 
have presented those proofs to Joseph ? Would they have 
left him, as they undeniably did, to believe her a guilty 
woman, worthy of death? Would they have left him, as 
they unmistakably did, to revolve in his own mind the 
mode of punishment by which he should make her expiate 
her unpardonable offense ? Would they have left her life 
as well as her reputation to depend upon the extremely 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. HI 

uncertain chance of his having a dream that would acquit 
her of guilt? 

From all this, is it not clear that Mary was simply 
“ found with child,” and that the phrase “ of the Holy 
Ghost ” is an unauthorized addition made by the hand of 
a forger ? Indeed, how could the person who found her 
“ with child ” know that her child was “ of the Holy 
Ghost?” Were the symptoms of “Holy-Ghost” preg¬ 
nancy very different from those of ordinary pregnancy? 
If they were, from what previous cases of “ Holy-Ghost ” 
pregnancy had this marked difference of symptoms become 
known ? If they were not, or if the difference had not, 
from previous cases, been made known, how could the party 
in question possibly know that this was a case of genuine 
“Holy-Gliost” pregnancy? Who, besides Mary herself, 
could possibly know with absolute certainty how she came 
to be in a pregnant condition ? 

From all these things, it becomes an indisputable fact 
that, at best, the whole matter—the whole basis of the 
Christian Religion—rests upon the totally unsupported 
word of a deeply interested party—of an obscure young 
woman, who, without being a wife, “was found with child,” 
and whose life depended upon her creating the impression 
that her unmaidenly condition was the result, not of crime, 
but of some supernatural agency. And of how much more 
value, in such a case, was her unsupported word than would 
be the unsupported word to the same effect of any one of 
the young women of our own neighborhood, who might, 
in the same way, chance to be “ found with child ?” As to 
Joseph’s dream, that amounts to nothing at all. The very 
fact that it was a dream is proof positive that it was not a 
reality. Dreams are now well known to be simply the 
thoughts or creations of the partially dormant mind of 
the dreamer himself. If Joseph really had seen an angel, 
and heard him speak these things, they would have been 
realities, and not a portion of the “ baseless fabric of a 
dream.” As it was, the angel, the communication, and all, 


112 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 

were nothing more nor less than dream material—the crea¬ 
tions of Joseph’s own partially dormant mind. 

In Matt, ii, 1-3, we read : “ Now when Jesus was born 
in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king, 
behold there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 
saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for 
we have seen his star in the east and are come to worship 
him. When Herod the king had heard these things he 
was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” Did this lan¬ 
guage profess to be the beginning of a novel, I should 
have but few objections to offer against it. When, how¬ 
ever, it professes to be authentic history, it certainly 
becomes open to very grave criticisms. Who were these 
wise men, and in what did their wisdom consist? From 
how far east of Jerusalem did they come? Were they 
Jews or foreigners? If Jews, why does the author so 
pompously declare that they “ came from the east ?” 
Judea extended only a very few miles east of Jerusalem— 
too few, by far, for the inhabitants on its eastern border to 
differ, in any respect, from the rest of its inhabitants. Of 
what advantage, then, was the fact that those so-called 
wise men came “ from the east ?” Since they left home 
after the birth of Jesus, and yet reached Bethlehem while 
he was still in the manger, they could not, by the modes of 
travel then in use, have come from any very distant coun¬ 
try. At most, they could have come from only a few days’ 
journey east of Jerusalem. If, then, they came from be¬ 
yond the eastern boundary of Judea, they must, of neces¬ 
sity, have come from the deserts of Arabia, which were 
inhabited then, as they are now, by semi-barbarous tribes, 
among whom wise men never prevailed. That they were 
from no distant country is also evident from the fact that 
they spoke the same language as the Jews. 

If those men were Jews, was it any mark of wisdom in 
them to go strolling about the streets of “Jerusalem, say¬ 
ing, Where is he that is born King of the Jews,” and de¬ 
claring that they had “come to worship him?” Could 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


113 


“wise men,” from a dozen miles east of Jerusalem, have 
supposed that the people of that city already knew of the 
obscure birth, in a manger at Bethlehem, of Mary’s ille¬ 
gitimate child, and that they had already acknowledged 
him as “ born King of the Jews ? ” From the language of 
their inquiry, those so-called “wise men” undeniably took 
all this for granted. Would really “ wise men ” have 
acted thus? Would really “wise men,” if Jews, have 
dared to come thus openly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to 
the king, and to all the people, a successor to the Jewish 
throne; a successor, too, of low and illegitimate birth? 
Would not such a proclamation have constituted high 
treason, and would not the persons who made it have been 
put to death as traitors ? 

If, when no one knew of the birth of any new pretender 
to the throne of England, a small band of men from a few 
miles east of London should go strolling about the streets 
of that city, saying, “ Where is he that is born king of 
England,” and declaring that they had “ come to worship 
him,” would they be regarded as “wise men?” Would 
they not, on the contrary, be far more likely to be arrested 
on the charge of insanity ? And would their case be ren¬ 
dered any the better when it became known that their new¬ 
born “king of England” was the illegitimate child of a 
young woman of the lower class; that he was born, and 
was still lying among the filth of a stable, or a damp cel¬ 
lar ; that he was one whose condition in life would forever 
unfit him for any high position; that he was one whose 
condition in life would render him extremely likely to live 
as a vagrant, and to die as a malefactor? And were “wise 
men,” in Herod’s time, wont to do things which none but 
idiots or insane persons would do at the present time ? 
Was not human nature the same then that it is now ? Do 
you, then, really believe that “ wise men,” like idiots, or 
insane persons, ever thus perambulated the streets of Je¬ 
rusalem? Does not your knowledge of human nature— 
does not your common sense—teach you that, so far from 


114 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


being founded on facts, this whole story is a pure fiction— 
a highly wrought Arabian tale ? 

If those so-called “ wise men ” were not Jews, of what 
nationality were they? As I have already shown, they 
could not have come from any great distance. And would 
“wise men” from any of the neighboring gentile tribes, 
have been likely to come thus to. Jerusalem and proclaim 
a new “ King of the Jews ? ” Would they have been likely 
to “have come to worship” this supposed new “King?” 
Did the Jews ever “worship ” their own kings? And did 
any of the gentile tribes ever “ worship ” the kings of the 
Jews? Were not the Jews intensely hated by all their 
neighbors? . Would those so-called “wise men,” after hav¬ 
ing thus worshiped a Jew, ever have dared to return into 
their own country ? You may be damned if you do not 
believe this absurd story; but I will be damned if I do 
believe it! 

Besides all these things, that star also requires a pass¬ 
ing notice. Since it appeared in the east, and since those 
so-called “ wise men ” were journeying toward the west, 
how did it manage to go “before them,” as we are assured 
that it did? And how did they know that the appearance 
of this star indicated the birth of a “ King of the Jews ? ” 
Was- such a star accustomed to appear, “ in the east,” on 
the birth of each successive “ King of the Jews,*” and did 
no such star ever appear on any other occasion? There 
must have been some fixed and well-known law that gov¬ 
erned the appearance of such stars; otherwise, those so- 
called “ wise men ” would not, on the occasion in question, 
have had any idea as to what was indicated by the appear¬ 
ance of the star. And since those men had this star to 
guide them right to the spot “where Jesus was,” why did 
they need to stop at Jerusalem, and go strolling about the 
streets, “ saying, Where is he that is born King of the 
Jews?” Why did they inquire, too, of parties who did 
not know, and who, under the circumstances, could not 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


115 


reasonably have been expected to know anything at all 
of the matter? 

Besides all this, since there are no other kinds of stars, 
that star must, of necessity, have been either a fixed star 
or a planet. From the fact, however, that it moved before 
those so-called “wise men,” it evidently could not have 
been a fixed star. Of necessity, then, it must have been a 
planet. But all planets belong to some system; and, in 
fixed orbits, revolve, unceasingly, around the sun, or 
around some other planetary body. From the very nature 
of its own constitution, and of the forces that are con¬ 
stantly bearing upon it, a planet is utterly incapable of 
ever ceasing in its motions, of ever moving in straight 
lines, or of ever making sudden or angular changes in the 
direction of its motion. Of necessity, its path is either 
circular or elliptical. 

From the fact that the star or planet under considera¬ 
tion was plainly visible to the naked eye, it could not have 
belonged to any other than the solar system. Which one 
of the solar planets, then, was it? What was its size, its 
distance from the sun, its rate of motion, etc. While all 
the other planets move from west to east, why did it move 
in the opposite direction ? What caused it, in direct vio¬ 
lation of all the laws of planetary motion, to move in 
straight lines, to make angular turns in its course, and, at 
last, to stand still? Why did it, unlike all the other 
planets, never appear except on the birth of a new “ King 
of the Jews ? ” Where was it all the balance of the time ? 
What was its composition? What finally became of it? 
Why has no other author ever seen fit to notice this truly 
wonderful astronomical phenomenon ? On what authority 
does the author of the Book of Matthew relate this utterly 
incredible story? 

I am aware that, with the effrontery for which they are 
usually so notorious, theologians have attempted to evade 
all these difficulties by unblusliingly assuming, without a 
particle of proof, that what Matthew calls a “ star ” was no 


116 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


star at all—that it was simply something that looked like a 
star, a phosphorescent or electrical light, a jack-o'-lantern, an 
optical illusion, or something of that kind, which was mirac¬ 
ulously moved along near the surface of the earth, in 
.advance of those so-called “ wise men.” This jack-o’-lan- 
tern theory, however, involves as many difficulties as does 
the real star theory. Besides this, since Matthew asserts 
positively that the light in question was a “ star," it is evi¬ 
dent that whatever tends to prove that it was not a star, 
necessarily tends to prove him a liar . Indeed, in any view 
of the case, he stands before us a convicted liar. If there 
was no “ star ” at all involved in the case, then he certainly 
lies when he asserts that there was one involved in it. If 
there was a “ star" involved in the case, then he just as 
certainly lies when he describes it as moving in a straight 
line, westivard to Jerusalem; as there turning at a right angle 
with its former course, and moving southward along the 
route usually traveled by men to Bethlehem, and as there 
standing still directly over a certain stable. 

In order to have appeared as such, that “ star ” must 
have been many millions of miles from the earth; and, 
in order to adopt its apparent motions to the actual 
motions of the earth, it must have been hurled through 
space with the inconceivable velocity of millions of miles 
in an hour. And all this it did, too, simply that it might 
guide a small party of men in their perfectly useless visit 
to a certain stable, in which lay the new-born babe of a 
young woman of rather doubtful reputation. Could not 
God have told them, at once, where the babe was ? 

If all these things were true, why does not Luke notice 
them ? Does he not profess to give a full history of the 
same period of Jesus’s life ? Why does he notice the unim¬ 
portant visit of a party of ignorant shepherds, from the 
immediate neighborhood, and yet entirely fail to notice the 
far more important visit of the “wise men from the east?” 
And why does he, while professing to give a minute 
description of all the events, in any way connected with 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


117 


the conception and the birth of Jesus, entirely fail to 
notice the most important event of all, the appearance of 
that wonderful “ star?” If so astounding an astronomical 
phenomenon had actually appeared, would he not have 
been sure to mention the fact ? 

In Matt, ii, 12, we read: “And being warned of God in 
dream that they should not return to Herod, they departed 
into their own country another way.” This is spoken of 
the same so-called “ wise men ” of whom I have been 
speaking. From the fact that, from Judea where they then 
were, “ they departed into their own country,” it is evident 
that they did not belong to the Jewish nation. On this 
subject, however, I have already said enough. I notice 
this passage now, only because of the dream that is men¬ 
tioned in it. Did all those men, at the same time, dream 
that same dream, or did one of them alone dream it for 
the whole company? If all of them at once dreamed it, 
would not Matthew, who deals extensively in the wonder¬ 
ful, havf been sure to notice so remarkable a coincidence ? 
If, however, only one of them dreamed it, how could the 
others know that it was “of God?” How many of you 
would believe your next neighbor, if he should claim that 
a very ordinary and natural dream of his was “ of God ?” 
How many of you would believe the same x thing if you 
were to tell it yourselves? And can the mere hearsay 
word of that so-called “wise man,” of whom you know 
nothing at all, be w r orth any more than would be your own 
word, or that of your neighbor? 

In the dream itself there was nothing remarkable. 
Under the circumstances it was very natural. Those men, 
knowing Herod’s extremely jealous and vengeful disposi¬ 
tion, could hardly have helped feeling some misgivings in 
regard to the propriety of returning to him after they had 
been worshiping the low-born child whom they themselves 
had proclaimed as “ born King of the Jews.” They could 
hardly have helped revolving in their own minds the pro¬ 
priety of returning “ into their own country another way.” 


118 


*THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Falling asleep with these thoughts upon their minds, it 
would have been strange if similar thoughts had not 
occurred to some of them in their dreams. How, then, 
could even the dreamer himself have known that his dream 
was a warning “ of God ?” Did this very natural and 
common-place dream bear God’s trade-mark upon it ? And 
how does it happen that, in giving the history of the birth 
and infancy of Jesus, Matthew mentions no less than 
five miraculous dreams, while Luke, in giving the history 
of the same things, mentions no dreams at all? Who told 
all these dreams to Matthew ? And since Luke missed all 
these five dreams, which are important portions of the 
“ Word of God,” may not Matthew also have missed many 
other similar dreams which were equally important por¬ 
tions of the “Word of God?” What proof have we that 
Matthew succeeded in collecting the thousandth part, 
even, of the dreams that were “ of God ?” 

In Matt, xii, 13-15, we learn that, being warned of 
God—in a “ dream,” of course—Joseph took M&ry and 
her child, and fled by night into Egypt, where he remained 
until after the death of Herod. This flight is represented 
to have taken place immediately after the departure of the 
so-called “ wise men.” It must have taken place, there¬ 
fore, from Bethlehem, and while Jesus was only a few 
days old. This, as you plainly see, renders it utterly im¬ 
possible for Joseph and his family to have visited Jerusa¬ 
lem until after their return from Egypt. Indeed, if they ever 
wisited Jerusalem at all, they could not have done so for a 
long time after their return. This fact we learn from the 
twenty-second verse, in which we are informed that, on 
coming out of Egypt, in obedience to a warning given in a 
“dream,” Joseph was afraid to return into Judea; and 
that, being warned in still another “ dream, he turned aside 
into the parts of Galilee, and dwelt in a city called Naza¬ 
reth.” 

The reason assigned for this flight into Egypt is that 
Herod, jealous and alarmed on account of the incipient 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


119 


fame of Mary’s new-born babe, desired to have it put to 
death. So determined, indeed, is he represented as hav¬ 
ing been, to make sure of the destruction of Jesus, that he 
“ sent forth and slew alb the children that were in Bethle¬ 
hem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and 
under.” Why he thus “ slew all the children,” we are not 
informed. It seems to me that he might have safely 
spared the females. Was he afraid that Jesus might be 
a female, and that this female might become “ King of the 
Jews ?” Can we, on any other than this extremely absurd 
hypothesis, conceive why, in seeking the life of Jesus 
alone, he should thus have slain several thousand female 
infants ? 

The reason assigned for Joseph’s being afraid to return 
into Judea is, that he feared the new king, Archelaus, 
Herod’s son, might have designs against the life of Jesus. 
How long Archelaus lived, I do not know; but, during his 
lifetime, of whatever length it may have been, Joseph and 
his family, according to Matthew’s account, would cer¬ 
tainly not have ventured to visit Jerusalem. And now let 
us see how this whole account agrees with that given by 
the equally inspired Luke. 

In Luke ii, 21, 22, we read; “ And when eight days were 
accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name 
was called Jesus, which was so named of the angel before 
he was conceived in the womb. And when the days of her 
purification according to the law of Moses were accom¬ 
plished, they brought him to Jerusalem to present him to 
the Lord.” Further on, we learn that, on this same occa¬ 
sion, sacrifices for Mary’s purification were publicly offered 
in the temple; that Jesus was publicly presented to the 
Lord; that the aged Simeon and the prophetess Anna held 
a grand rejoicing over the child; and that, when all these 
things were accomplished Joseph and his family departed, 
not to flee “ by night into Egypt,” but to journey safely, in 
open day, to their own home in Galilee. Luke also in¬ 
forms us that, so far from being, as Matthew represents 


120 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


him, afraid to return into Judea, Joseph and his family 
“went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover.” 
Thus Luke not only entirely omits all mention of the flight 
of Joseph and his family into Egypt, but gives us no occa¬ 
sion for such a flight, and no possible room, in the history 
of this family, in which such a flight could have taken 
place. He also entirely omits to mention the horrible 
slaughter of infants, mentioned by Matthew, and gives us 
no occasi on, no room, for any such slaughter. 

Thus you see that, at the very same time that Matthew 
has Joseph and his family fleeing “by night into Egypt,” 
to escape the vengeance of Herod, Luke has them going 
publicly to Jerusalem, Herod’s own capital. You also see 
that, at the very same time that Matthew has Jesus 
secreted, for safety, in Egypt, Luke has him publicly 
exhibited in Jerusalem. You likewise see that, at the 
very same time that Matthew has Herod butchering many 
thousands of infants, for the express purpose of insuring 
the destruction of Jesus, Luke has Jesus publicly offered 
to the Lord, in the temple, at Herod’s very door. You 
finally see that, at the very same time that Matthew has 
Joseph afraid to return at all into Judea, Luke has him 
and his family go safely up “to Jerusalem, every year at 
the feast of the passover.” 

And now, my friends of the priesthood, have any of you 
faces so hard that, without either laughing or blushing, 
you can look an intelligent person steadily in the face, and 
declare that you sincerely believe both of these utterly 
irreconcilable stories ? When talking confidentially among 
yourselves, do you ever pretend to believe them both? 
You know very well that you do not. You know very well 
that, on such occasions, you do not pretend to believe verv 
much of anything that you preach. You know very well 
that, in faith, you are thorough infidels; in practice, 
shameless hypocrites. You know very well that, before 
the people, you pretend to accept, as the “Word of God,” 
absurd and contradictory stories which you yourselves 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


121 


fully believe to be utterly unworthy of credit. You know 
very well that, for this hypocrisy, you excuse yourselves 
on the ground that the people need to be deceived—on 
the ground that, although you never swallow a morsel of 
such food yourselves, you must, nevertheless, as shepherds, 
feed your flocks on such food as they like to eat, and as 
will cause them to make the finest yield, to yourselves, of 
wool and of mutton. These questions and remarks I 
address to those members of the priesthood only who, by 
reason of their great learning and their vast mental powers, 
stand at the head of their profession. To these parties, 
all that I have said is fully applicable. None of these 
parties believe any of the absurdities they preach. Not 
so, however, with those members of the priesthood who, 
by reason of their little learning, and their feeble mental 
powers, stand low in their profession. Many of these 
parties doubtless do believe all the absurdities they 
preach. 

And now I have a few words more to say concerning 
that horrible massacre which Matthew charges Herod 
with having committed upon the infants of Bethlehem. 
This city, together with “all the coasts thereof,” was 
quite an important place. So much so, indeed, that 
according to the estimates of some authors, the number of 
infants massacred, on the occasion in question, could not 
have been less than fourteen thousand. So wholesale, so 
cruel, and so utterly inexcusable a massacre would, unde¬ 
niably, have been one of the most notable events in the 
whole history of the Jewish Nation, if not of the world. 
If, then, any such unparalleled massacre ever occurred at all, 
is it not exceedingly strange that no Jewish historian ever 
noticed it? Is it not exceedingly strange that so notable 
an event was never noticed by any historian of any nation¬ 
ality, except Matthew, and not even by him until several 
generations after it is said to have occurred? 

This, too, was in the Augustan age, in which learning 
flourished, and able writers were numerous. At that time, 


122 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ancl in that country, such a massacre would have been 
regarded in very nearly the same light in which a sim¬ 
ilar massacre would be regarded, if committed to-day, 
in Europe, or the United States. It would have created a 
widespread and intense excitement, a universal and un¬ 
utterable horror. It would have caused a fearful insur¬ 
rection of the Bethlehemites, if not of the whole Jewish 
Nation. After the perpetration of so atrocious a crime, 
Herod would not have been permitted to live one week. 
Besides this, a considerable army would have been re¬ 
quired to accomplish so immense a massacre. Had only 
a few hundred men undertaken to accomplish it, they 
would have h^en annihilated by the Bethlehemites, who, 
in the strength of desperation, would have risen, en masse, 
to defend the lives of their little ones. But had Herod, at 
that time, an army of any considerable strength ? Was not 
Judea, at that time, a Boman province? Was not Herod 
himself subject to the authority of the Boman Governor ? 
Without that Governor’s permission, would he have dared 
to send out a military expedition of any kind, and espe¬ 
cially for the wholesale butchery of infants? Would that 
Governor have given him permission to commit so horri¬ 
ble a massacre? Were not many of Herod’s soldiers 
Bethlehemites? Would these have helped butcher their 
own infants? And would the rest of the Jewish officers 
and soldiers have butchered the infants of their brethren of 
Bethlehem ? Matthew speaks of this massacre as of an 
affair so common-place that it excited no indignation, no 
commotion, no comment, even, of any kind. But can such 
a story be a true one? Could such a massacre be com¬ 
mitted in Europe, or in the United States, to-day, without 
creating any excitement at all, and without being noticed 
by a single writer of the present age ? If such a thing 
would be utterly impossible now, as you know that it cer¬ 
tainly would be, how could it have been possible, in the 
almost equally enlightened age of Herod and Augustus ? 
Besides all this, is it not now a well-known fact that, cen- 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 123 

turies before the birth of Jesus, this very same story was 
told of Kansa and Crishna of India? 

Speaking of the crucifixion, Matthew says that, “ from 
the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto 
the ninth hour;” that “ the vail of the temple was rent in 
twain ” from the top to Jilie bottom; that “ the earth did 
quake, and the rocks rent; ” that “ the graves were opened, 
and many bodies of the saints which slept, arose, and 
came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went 
into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” If these 
events ever did thus occur, all at one time, they indisput¬ 
ably constituted the most remarkable coincidence of won¬ 
derful phenomena ever known in the history of the whole 
w r orld. Why, then, do not any other writers, and espe¬ 
cially the other three Evangelists, say a word about these 
things? You pretend that some of these Evangelists were 
disciples of Jesus, and were present at his crucifixion. 
Admitting that such was the fact, these Evangelists must 
themselves have been eye-witnesses of all that occurred 
on*that occasion. If, then, they witnessed all the wonder¬ 
ful phenomena described by Matthew, is it not exceedingly 
strange that not one of them says a single word about any 
of these things? Besides all this, would not the Jews 
and the Romans, seeing all these wonderful things— 
especially the rising from the dead of the bodies of the 
saints—have been at once converted to the new religion, 
Christianity ? Far gone in unbelief as I am, I would at once 
become a believer, were I, on such an occasion, to witness 
so unparalleled a combination of wonderful phenomena. 

But did these things ever really occur? If they did, 
whose bodies were those that thus so unceremoniously left 
their only proper places, the graves, and went into the city 
to frighten the women and the children ? I am not aware 
that either the Jews or the pagans ever had any such 
things as saints; and since, previous to that very day, 
Christianity had not had any existence, it was certainly 
very early for Christian saints to come popping up in so 


124 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


unceremonious a manner. Indeed, I cannot learn tliat 
sainthood was invented and brought into use, until a cen¬ 
tury or more after the time in question. Who, then, 
could those upstart saints have been ? How many of them 
were there ? Who saw them rise and go “ into the holy 
city ? ” Who were the “ many ” ^o whom they “ appeared,” 
after their arrival in the city? How were they received 
by their former friends? Had they real, living bodies 
composed of flesh, blood, and bones ? Had they stomachs,, 
lungs, intestines, etc. ? Had they appetites and passions, 
like those of other men? Were they clothed, or did they 
go stalking about naked? If clothed, where did they get 
their clothes? Were their old clothes resurrected with 
their old bodies? Had they any spirits, or did they con¬ 
sist entirely of the ‘.‘bodies” which “arose?” If they 
had spirits, whence did those spirits come ? Had these,, 
too, like their bodies, been sleeping in the grave, or did 
they just happen to be strolling back from heaven, in the 
very nick of time, to re-enter their old bodies ? And what 
became of them ? Did they remain among men, and again 
die, or did they then, bodies and all, go scrambling up to 
heaven, whence, without bodies, they had just come ? If 
they then went to heaven, did they go clothed, or naked ? 
Finally, how far, and in what direction from the earth did 
they have to go iii order to reach heaven ? 

Matthew says that, on a certain occasion, two men pos¬ 
sessed of devils came out of the tombs and met Jesus,, 
who cast out of them a legion of devils. What these 
devils were, we are not informed. We are informed, how¬ 
ever, that they spoke and reasoned like men, and that they 
were regularly organized into a military body called a 
legion. In their size, however, and in their mode of liv¬ 
ing, they were probably quite similar to those animalcule 
which we now call trichine. They could not have been 
much larger. 

From the ambiguity of his language, Matthew leaves- 
us in doubt as to whether the men owned the devils or the- 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


125 


devils owned the men. It was probably a kind of mutual 
association by the terms of which the devils were to fur¬ 
nish the men with wit, while .the men were to furnish them 
with food and lodging. Matthew also fails to inform us 
how many legions were left in the two men, after this 
legion had been ordered out. He does inform us, how¬ 
ever, that at their own request the devils that w r ere cast 
out on this occasion were permitted to enter into a herd of 
swine; and that, as soon as these poor devils were com¬ 
fortably established in their new quarters, the swine took 
it into their silly heads to run down a steep place into the 
sea and drown themselves. 

Luke says that, on this occasion, there was only one 
man met Jesus, and that he came out of the city, and not 
out of the tombs. Luke says, too, that the swine were 
drowned in a lake, and not in the sea. He also says that 
this event occurred in the country of the Gadarenes, and 
not, as Matthew has it, in that of the Gergesenes. And 
now, in order to escape damnation, which one of these 
monstrously absurd and utterly irreconcilable accounts 
must we believe ? 

Whether composed of men or of devils, a legion, like 
a regiment with us, was a regularly organized military 
body, containing about five thousand individuals, and com¬ 
manded by an officer of a particular rank. How large, 
then, could these devils have been if so great a number of 
them found comfortable lodgings and the means of sub¬ 
sistence inside of one man’s body; 'and that, too, without 
visibly increasing his size, changing his shape, or imped¬ 
ing his motions. Am I not justifiable in supposing that 
they were quite similar to trichinae ? The fact, too, that 
thev wished to enter into the swine, which is the favorite 
dwelling place of trichinae, still further confirms my opin¬ 
ion. Be all this as it may, however, of what form were 
those devils ? In what part of the man’s body did they 
reside? Upon what did they subsist? What was their 


126 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


port of entry? What were tlieir occupations ? What was 
their form of government ? W T ho was their chief ruler ? 
Who was (jommander-in-chief of the legion that were 
ordered out ? From which end of the man did they take 
their departure? At which end of the swine did they 
make their entrance ? What was their order of march— 
by twos, by fours, or by platoons? Were they all males, 
and all of the same age, or were both sexes and different 
ages represented among them ? Why did they desire to 
enter into the swine at all? To what extent did their 
entrance into the swine affect the pork market? Finally, 
when the swine were all drowned, what became of these 
poor, persecuted devils ? Were they, too, all drowned ? I 
suppose they must have been, since they were never again 
heard of; and since devils, not being at all used to water, 
would naturally drown very easily. 

And now, let me ask, can any of you be so totally 
blinded by priestcraft—so utterly bereft of reason and 
common sense—as to really believe that a whole nation of 
intelligent beings ever did thus live, and carry on a regu¬ 
lar government inside of the body of a man or of a hog ? 
If your priests can succeed in making you believe this 
monstrously absurd and utterly incredible man-hog-and- 
devil tale, what is there so absurd or so incredible that 
they could not make you believe i ? 

Matthew says that, on a certain occasion, Jesus healed 
two blind men. Speaking of this same occasion, Luke 
declares that there was only one blind man healed. Which 
tells the truth? Matthew says that Judas died by hang¬ 
ing himself. The author of Acts says that he died from 
the effects of a fall. Can both accounts be true ? Did the 
unfortunate Judas actually die thus at two different times, 
in two different places, and from two different causes? 
The great commentator, Dr. Clarke, discredits both of 
these accounts, and labors to prove that Judas died of 
diarrhoea. Poor fellow! Two previous deaths, one from 
hanging, and one from falling, were indeed enough to 



THE NEW TESTAMENT. 127 

bring upon liim the diarrhoea, from which, Clarke says, he 
finally died. 

Matthew says that Judas gave back to the priests, the 
money which he had received for betraying his master, 
and that-, with it, they bought the potter’s field. The 
author of Acts declares that Judas kept this money, and, 
with it, bought himself a field. Can both accounts be 
true ? Matthew says that the two thieves who were cruci¬ 
fied with Jesus, both reviled him. Luke says that only 
one of them did this, and that the other one rebuked him 
for so doing. Which account is true ? Matthew says that, 
on a certain occasion, Jesus went up into a mountain and 
sat down; and, while sitting there, preached a certain 
noted sermon, usually called the “Sermon on the Mount.” 
Luke, however, declares that Jesus did not preach this 
sermon sitting in the mount; that he first came down from 
the mountain, and then preached it standing in a plain. 
Can both accounts be true ? 

Matthew says that, on a certain occasion, Jesus sent 
two of his disciples to steal, or, at least, to take without 
leave, two asses; and that, when they had done this, he 
rode both of these asses, at once, into Jerusalem. John, 
however, flatly contradicts this ridiculous story, by de¬ 
claring that there was only one real ass concerned in 
the affair, and that Jesus himself “found” it, and sat 
“thereon.” John probably expects the reader, who, in 
fancy, believingly accompanies Jesus into Jerusalem, to 
constitute the other ass. But which account is true? 

Matthew informs us that, on a certain occasion, the 
devil_who seems to have been a very intelligent, court¬ 

eous, and enterprising old gentleman of immense wealth- 
first took Jesus up into the temple, and then up “into an 
exceeding high mountain,” from the summit of which at 
one view, they beheld “all the kingdoms of the world, and 
the glory of them.” That must, indeed, have been “an 
exceeding high mountain.” What mountain was it, and 
how far was it from Jerusalem? Luke says that the visit 


128 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


to this “exceeding high mountain” was made first, and 
that to the temple, afterwards. Can both accounts be 
true? 

John says that the first visit to the sepulcher of Jesus 
was made by Mary Magdalene alone, who came “ when it 
was yet dark.” Matthew says that the first visit was made 
by two Marys, who came “as it began to dawn.” Mark 
says that the first visit was made by three women, who 
came “at the rising of the sun.” Luke says that the first 
visit was made by at least five women, who came “very 
early in the morning.” Are all four of these contradictory 
accounts the “Inspired Word of God?” 

John says that when his one woman arrived at the 
sepulcher, she saw nobody at all. Matthew says that 
when his two women arrived at the sepulcher, they saw 
“the angel of the Lord” sitting down, on the outside 
of the sepulcher. Mark says that when his three women 
arrived at the sepulcher, “they saw a young man sitting” 
down, on the inside of the sepulcher. Luke says that 
when his five or more women arrived at the sepulcher, 
they saw “two men” standing up, on the inside of the 
sepulcher. Can all four of these contradictory accounts 
be true? 

John has his one woman make a second visit to the 
sepulcher, in company with Peter and another disciple, 
and has her, on this occasion, see “ two angels in white 
sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, 
where the body of Jesus had lain.” What is a little 
strange about this affair is that Mary, who merely “stooped 
down, and looked into the sepulcher,” from the outside, 
should have seen angels, while the two disciples, who 
“ went into the sepulcher,” saw nothing but two bundles 
of linen clothes. Did Mary mistake these two bundles of 
linen for “ two angels in white,” or did the two disciples 
mistake the “ two angels in white ” for two bundles of 
linen? If the mistake was on Mary’s side, as was most 
probable—if, instead of “two angels in white, sitting the 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


129 


one at tlie head, and the other at the feet, where the body 
of Jesus had lain ’ ’—if, instead of being what she, peering 
into the interior gloom, from the outside, mistook them 
for, these two objects were what the disciples, on a closer 
inspection, pronounced them to be, merely two bundles of 
linen, then, of necessity, Jesus, when he rose from the 
dead, must have gone away entirely naked, his old clothes 
having been taken from him, by the soldiers who crucified 
him. His being thus naked, is probably the reason why 
he was always so shy in showing himself after his resur¬ 
rection. Did lie finally go to heaven naked ? If not, what 
kind of clothes did he wear, and where did he get them ? 
It is a little strange, too, that Peter and the other disci¬ 
ples should have felt so little interest in the discoveries 
they had made that^ instead of reporting these things to 
their brethren, they very unconcernedly “ went away again 
unto their own home.” This looks as if they knew that 
their brethren needed no information on the subject—as if 
the disciples might have been at the sepulcher, during the 
night, and, after frightening or bribing the guards, might 
have fixed up things there to suit themselves, leaving it to 
poor, ignorant, and fanatical women to make and report 
discoveries in the morning. 

Matthew says that the appearance of “ the angel of the 
Lord ” was so terrible that, “ for fear of him, the keepers 
did shake, and become as dead men.” And yet while these 
Eoman soldiers—those very bravest of men—are repre¬ 
sented as being thus frightened by a certain white object 
that appeared in the morning twilight, until they became 
“ as dead men,” the two women are represented as not 
being at all frightened at this same object. Is such an 
account credible ? Every soldier will pronounce it simply 
ridiculous. No white object seen in the morning twilight 
can so frighten a body of veteran soldiers as to make them 
“ become as dead men.” The story is a slander upon all 
soldiers. 


130 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Besides all this, is it credible that those soldiers, accus¬ 
tomed as they were to the most rigid discipline, and, at 
that time, acting under the strictest orders to guard that 
sepulcher from all intrusion, would thus, in direct viola¬ 
tion of their orders, permit men and women, unchallenged, 
to pass, at pleasure, to and from that sepulcher ? To the 
intelligent soldier the idea of such conduct on the part of 
those guards is simply ridiculous. Admitting, however, 
that they did act in this very unsoldier-like manner, the 
case becomes still worse; since, on this hypothesis, the sep¬ 
ulcher was virtually without any guard at all, and the 
body of Jesus might easily have been carried away, by 
designing parties, just as the Jews, who investigated the 
matter, declared that it was. If, as John informs us, those 
recreant guards, “ when it was yet dark,” and from that 
time on, did thus suffer men to enter that sepulcher at 
pleasure, would they not have done the same thing during 
the night ? According to Matthew’s account, we have their 
own testimony that they did do this, and not a particle of 
testimony that they did not. The sepulcher, then, being 
thus open to whomsoever might see fit to enter it, the dis¬ 
appearance of the body of Jesus occurred, almost as a 
matter of course, under the circumstances, and hence con¬ 
stituted no proof at all that he had arisen from the dead. 
Thus by destroying the character for integrity of those 
soldiers, theologians have fatally injured their own cause. 

Matthew says that, in order to account for the dis¬ 
appearance of the body of Jesus, from the sepulcher, the 
chief priests and the elders of the Jews “gave large money 
unto the soldiers, saying, say ye, His disciples came by 
night, and stole him away while we slept.” This passage 
alone is sufficient to brand the whole story as a base for¬ 
gery, and a very clumsy one at that; as a forgery either 
gotten up by a, very ignorant man, or else for the benefit 
of very ignorant people. 

Every person who is at all acquainted with the military 
usages of the Romans, knows that immediate death was the- 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


131 


penalty of a soldier when found guilty of the offense of sleep¬ 
ing at his post, while on guard duty. Similar necessities 
have given rise to similar usages in all other nations. The 
lives of the whole army, as well as the safety of the whole 
nation, almost constantly depend upon the fidelity with 
which the guards perform their duties. By the military 
laws of all nations, therefore, sleeping at his post while on 
guard, has always been regarded and punished as one of 
the gravest offenses a soldier can commit. Is it credible, 
then, that, even for “large money,” the soldiers in question 
would have given, such testimony against themselves as 
would insure their own immediate execution? If they had 
really been guilty of sleeping at their post, is it at all 
likely that they would have admitted their guilt? In 
order to save themselves, would they not have been almost 
sure to unite with the disciples in declaring that the body 
of Jesus disappeared through supernatural means; through 
means which they had no power to prevent ? How much 
less, then, would they, being really innocent, have pleaded 
guilty to a capital offense. 

Besides all this, would they, unless they were idiots, 
have testified to events that occurred while they were 
asleep? They might have testified that the body of Jesus 
disappeared while they were asleep; but how could they 
have testified that “ His disciples came, . . . and stole 

him away?” Would such testimony ever have been 
received, in any court on earth, or by any people ? And 
were the Jewish priests all idiots? If not, would they 
have given the soldiers “large money” to give in testimony 
so palpably absurd and so utterly useless? Could they 
have believed that the people would be satisfied with such 
totally inadmissible testimony. Did they regard the peo¬ 
ple as all fools? Do you, indeed, depend for the purity 
of your Bible upon these priests—these idiotic knaves ? 

I am not in the habit of saying hard things about my 
fellow-men. I can control my language, but I cannot 
always control my feelings. Hence it is that I cannot 


132 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


avoid a feeling of pity, or of contempt, for those who pro¬ 
fess to believe this monstrously absurd and incredible 
story. If they be sincere, in this profession, then I pity 
them for their utter want of common sense. If they be 
not sincere, then I detest them for their want of common 
honesty. 

John has his one woman report her discoveries at the 
sepulcher to none except Peter and one other disciple, 
and has them both go 'with her to the sepulcher. Luke 
has his five or more women report their discoveries to 
“the eleven, and to all the rest,” and has Peter alone run 
to the sepulcher. And now which one of these contradic-. 
tory stories is true? 

Mark and John have Jesus, after his resurrection, 
make his first appearance to Mary Magdalene alone, and 
has her tell the others. Matthew, who almost invariably 
deals in twos, has him make his first appearance to two 
Marys, and has them tell the others. Luke has him make 
his first appearance to two men, and has them tell the others. 
Matthew, Mark, and John have him make his first appear¬ 
ance in Jerusalem. Luke has him make it on the road to 
Emmaus, some distance from Jerusalem. Who tells the 
truth ? 

Mark, Luke, and John have Jesus, after his resurrec¬ 
tion, hold his first meeting with his disciples in a room at 
Jerusalem. Matthew, however, has him, by special ap¬ 
pointment, hold this first meeting on a mountain in Gal¬ 
ilee. Can both accounts be true ? If, as you pretend, the 
respective authors of two of the books in question, were 
Matthew and John, two of the disciples of Jesus, how 
could these two authors, having both been present at this 
first meeting wdth Jesus, have differed so widely in regard 
to the place in which it occurred? 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke have Jesus hold his first 
meeting with the whole eleven of his disciples. John, 
however, has him meet with only ten of them, and has the 
other one, Thomas, regard these ten, and all the women of 


THE NEW TESTAMENT. 


133 


the party, as a set of incorrigible liars, when they declared 
to him that they had seen Jesus. Again, I ask, can both 
these accounts be true ? 

Luke has Jesus make his ascent into heaven from 
Bethany. Mark has him make it from a room in Jerusa¬ 
lem. The Acts has him make it from Mount Olivet. 
Matthew has him make it, or, at least, take a final farewell 
of his disciples, from a mountain in Galilee. John has 
him do the same, at the Sea of Tiberias. If any one of 
these five contradictory accounts be true, which one is it, 
and how are we to know that it is true ? 

On all hands, it is admitted that the resurrection of 
Jesus, and his bodily ascent into heaven, are the most im¬ 
portant matters connected with either his own history, or 
that of the Christian Church. Why, then, were not these 
events established as facts by something like respectable 
evidence?* It is an undeniable fact that, in regard to 
almost every particular connected with these supposed 
events, the four Evangelists utterly disagree ; and, in many 
instances, directly contradict one another. The only thing 
in regard to which they all agree, is in representing the 
disciples, who thoroughly understood one another’s char¬ 
acters, as not having a particle of confidence in one 
another’s veracity, or in that of the women with whom 
they were associated. When, on the morning of the so- 
called resurrection, two of these women reported what 
they had seen, the disciples regarded their reports as 
“idle tales.” When two of the disciples reported that 
they had seen Jesus, the others did not believe that they 
spoke a word of truth. So, when all of the women, and 
ten of the disciples, at last united in declaring that they 
had seen Jesus, the remaining disciple, Thomas, a sensible 
man, who very well knew the character of the whole set, 
refused to believe one word of their united testimony. 
What wonderful characters they must have possessed! 
After a very intimate acquaintance, of several years, the 
disciples regarded those women as far more likely to make 


134 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


up and tell “ idle tales,” than they were to report facts. 
After a similar long and intimate acquaintance with one 
another, the disciples regarded one another as far more 
likely to lie than to tell the truth. And now, let me ask, 
if they had always known one another as strictly truthful 
persons, could they, after so long and so intimate an ac¬ 
quaintance, have thus regarded one another as persons 
extremely likely to tell “idle tales,” or unmitigated 
falsehoods ? Will we be damned, then, if we believe that, 
after their thorough acquaintance, their opinions of one 
another were correct, and that they really were a set of 
persons whose testimony was totally unworthy of credit ? 

These are only a few of the many internal evidences 
that I could adduce to prove that, so far from being the 
■“Inspired Word of God,” the New Testament is nothing 
more than a collection of “ idle tales,” “ absurd fables,” 
and “deliberate forgeries.” These few evidences, how- 
over, must suffice. I have already detained you too long. 
I will therefore conclude my present lecture by giving it 
as my candid opinion that those bigots who attribute to 
God these “idle tales,” these “absurd fables,” etc., and 
w r ho denounce damnation against all who do not follow 
their blasphemous example, will at last find themselves to 
be the most thoroughly damned of any set of men that ever 
were damned. 


THE CREATION. 


135 


LECTURE FIFTH. 

THE CREATION. 

On account of its vast importance, I shall devote three 
full lectures to the subject of the Creation, and these three 
lectures will be almost identical with the first three of my 
smaller work, entitled “Deity Analyzed.” In my present 
lecture I shall undertake to disprove the story of the Cre¬ 
ation, by proving that there never could have been, and 
consequently never was, any such Being as the Creator. 

Whether the universe has always existed, and is self-sus¬ 
taining, or whether, at some definite period in the past, it 
was brought from nonentity into existence, by a previously 
existing personality called God, who still sustains it, is the 
most important, the most stupendous question to which the 
thoughts of men have ever been directed. It involves all 
possible causation, all possible good, and all possible evil. 

If, as I hold, the universe be self-existent, and self- 
sustaining, then to it alone, to the ever-present and un- 
•changable laws of nature, we must look, as the only source 
of all the evil that has ever afflicted, and of all the good 
that has ever benefited mankind. On this hypothesis we 
have no use, no room, for any such personality as God. In 
other words, we have no God at all; and, having no God 
to hear and to answer our prayers, we have, of course, no 
need of prayers. We need not, therefore, be at the trouble 
and expense of keeping up our worse than useless armies 
of priests, our gorgeous resorts of fashion called churches, 
our absurd and entirely mythical institutions of punish- 


136 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ment called hell and purgatory, our equally absurd and 
mythical priest-helpers called devils, etc. In order to 
attain the highest possible degree of moral, physical, and 
intellectual perfection and enjoyment, we have only to live 
constantly in harmony with all of the ever-present laws of 
our being. 

If, on the other hand, as held by my opponents, the 
universe, at some definite period in the past, was brought 
from nonentity into existence by a previously existing per¬ 
sonality called God, entirely outside of itself and inde¬ 
pendent of it; and if it is still sustained by that per¬ 
sonality or God, then, to him alone, we must look as 
the source of all possible good, and of all possible evil. 
On this hypothesis we have no use, no room, for any such 
thing as science. In other words, we have no such thing 
as science. In matter, we have no fixed properties; in 
nature, no unchangeable laws. We have nothing upon 
which science could be founded. All things depend upon 
the caprice of this God, who is himself governed by no laws 
at all. 

On this hypothesis, which is generally adopted by all 
except a few of the most intelligent of men, a certain 
liquid may at one moment be water, and at the next blood 
or wine. At one moment, a certain object may be merely 
a lump of clay ; at the next an ape, an ass, or a man. At 
one moment a certain mass of matter may be nothing but 
dust; at the next it may be lice, or some other kind of ver¬ 
min. At one moment a certain object may be simply a 
wooden rod ; at the next, a living serpent; and, at still the 
next, a wooden rod again, inside of which may be several 
living serpents, which were once wooden rods, and which 
it very ungraciously swallowed, while it was their fellow- 
serpent. At one moment a serpent may be able to strut 
about on legs, like a first-class dandy; at the next, to his 
unspeakable disgust and humiliation, he may be compelled 
to crawl on his belly. At one moment, like a true epicure, 
he may eat none but the choicest kind of food; at the 


THE CREATION. 


137 


next, through a strange perversion of taste, he may eat 
nothing but clust—dust, of course, which has been changed 
into lice, or something else of a digestible and nutritious 
nature. At one moment this serpent may be quietly tak¬ 
ing a walk with the most lovely lady in all the land, may be 
teaching her the uses of certain fine fruits, and, like a first- 
class theologian, may be instructing her in regard to the 
nature of God’s promises; at the next he may instinctively 
throw himself into a coil, thrust out his tongue, rattle his 
tail, and hiss forth his wrath and his venom. On one occa¬ 
sion a woman may have to be born; on another, just as 
good a woman may be manufactured out of bones—whale¬ 
bones, of course. In order to bear a child, a woman may, 
on one occasion, have to know a man; on another, she may 
just as easily bear a child without a man. At one time the 
clouds may pour down water; at another they may pour 
down fire, bread, brimstone, birds, or great stones. At 
one time a man may be heavier than air; at another he 
may be lighter, and may soar aloft in it like a balloon. 
At one moment a man’s strength may lie in his muscles; 
at another in his hair. At one time a spring of water may 
flow from the ground ; at another just as good a spring 
may flow from a loose and rolling stone, a large brick, or 
the jaw-bone of an ass. At one time birds may have to be 
hatched from eggs; at another, they may be brought forth 
by the waters; and, at still another, they may be manu¬ 
factured, like so many bricks, directly from the ground. 
At one moment a man may be dead and putrid; at the 
next, alive and well. At one time, well armed, and well 
disciplined men may fight for their lives, or flee away 
for safety; at another, they may come quietly up, a thou¬ 
sand at a time, and let a single man, a dissipated vaga¬ 
bond, for mere amusement, beat out their brains with the 
jaw-bone of an ass. At one time, a man may not be able 
to lift more than five times his own weight; at another, he 
may be able, with the utmost ease, to lift an immense hotel 
with three thousand people in it. At one time, the mere 


138 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


extending of a wooden rod, in a man’s hand, may produce 
no visible effect at all on any other object; at another, it 
may divide the waters of a sea, cause a river to flow from 
a brick, produce millions of tons of lice, frogs, and flies, 
turn all the rivers and lakes of a large country into blood, 
produce murrain among all the cattle of a whole nation, 
cause storms of fire to fall from heaven, entirely shut off 
the sun’s light for three whole days at a time, cause bread 
to tumble down from heaven, or destroy all the first-borns 
of a great people. At one time, cattle may be capable of 
suffering death only once; at another, three times at least— 
once from murrain, once from hail, and once from drown¬ 
ing. At one time, the sun may rise promptly in the morn¬ 
ing ; at another, he may not rise at all for three whole 
days. At one time he may set promptly in the even¬ 
ing ; at another, in order to give a band of cut-throats 
light by which to butcher women and children, he may 
remain stationary, in mid-heaven, for a whole day at a 
time. On one occasion, he may move from east to west; 
on another, in order to please some old fortune-teller, he 
may move in the opposite direction. At one time, the 
clouds may pour down scarcely water enough to saturate 
the ground, and to fill the rivers; at another, they may 
pour down enough to fill all the space between themselves 
and the earth, and then pour up enough to raise this im¬ 
mense body, in a solid mass, all around the world, still 
three or four miles higher. At one time, an ass may 
merely bray; at another, he may exhort, in good English, 
like a Methodist preacher at a camp-meeting. At one 
time, fire, of ordinary hotness, may burn those who are 
cast into it; at another, though made seven times hotter 
than an ordinary furnace, it may not scorch their clothes, 
singe their hair, or even prove uncomfortable to them. At 
one time, a man may have hair on his head, and nails on 
his fingers; at another, he may have feathers on his head, 
and claws on his fingers. At one moment, he may be a 
mighty king sitting upon a throne; at the next, a gentle 


THE CREATION. 


139 


ox eating grass in a pasture with other cattle. At one 
time, a man may be older than his own son ; at another, he 
.and his son may be exactly of the same age; and, at still 
another, the son may be the older of the two. And so on 
of all other things. There is nothing fixed, nothing upon 
which we can, with any degree of certainty, depend. Sci¬ 
ence becomes a burlesque, and the tales of Gulliver and 
Sindbad the Sailor become perfectly credible histories. 
We have no need to sow, to reap, to make clothes, to build 
houses, to marry or to give in marriage. No wonder, 
then, that Jesus, who seems to have been a firm believer 
in this supernatural system of things, and who is assumed 
to have been himself the result of a supernatural connec¬ 
tion between an infinitely old bachelor and a beautiful 
young maid—no wonder, I say, that he commanded us to 
“take no thought, saying, What shall w'e eat? or what 
shall we drink? or wherewithal shall we be clothed?” 
All we have to do is, by means of our prayers, our priests, 
our churches, our hells, our devils, etc., to sufficiently bam¬ 
boozle the capricious God who controls all things, and get 
him to do for us whatever we w~ant done. 

On the one side of this great question, we find arrayed 
a small band of grand thinkers, called scientists, with 
their matter, their physical forces, etc., which they hold 
to be, of necessity, eternal, and to be also, in themselves, 
capable of producing motion, heat, light, life—in short, all 
the phenomena of nature. On the other side, we find 
arrayed all the balance of mankind; vast armies of priests 
and their countless millions of unthinking followers, with 
their Brahms, their Buddhas, their Ormutzes, their 
Alirimanes, their Chrishnas, their Josses, their Lamas, 
their Allahs, their Mikadoes, their Jupiters, their Jugger¬ 
nauts, their Jehovahs, their Satans, their Beelzebubs, their 
Jesuses, their suns, their cats, their apes, their snakes, 
their bulls, their crocodiles, their elephants, their trees, 
their rivers, and their thousands of other similar gods, 
demi-gods, devils, etc. By their respective sects of wor- 


140 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


shipers, these various deific characters are assumed to 
have brought the universe, from absolute nonentity, into 
existence, and to be the producers, directly or indirectly, 
of all the phenomena of nature. 

On the one side of this question, we find the scientists, 
all working harmoniously together for the discovery of 
truth, and for the advancement of the best interests of the 
human race. On the other side, we find the religionists 
all broken up into a thousand intensely hostile sects, 
fighting one another with the most implacable fury, not 
for the discovery of truth, or for the advancement of the 
best interests of the human race, but for the supremacy of 
their respective deities and their respective religions. 
Each of these sects swear that all the others are impostors 
on the broad road to eternal damnation. In the names of 
their respective deities, they often butcher and burn one 
another, without any distinction of age, sex, or condition, 
by the tens of thousands at once. There is scarcely a 
year of the world’s history that is not blackened by the 
record of some of these horrible religious butcheries. 
And these butcheries are still being committed, without 
any abatement of their atrocity, in Turkey, and in other 
parts of the world, and, from the very nature of their 
cause, they must and will, inevitably, continue to be com¬ 
mitted so long as religions continue to exist upon the 
earth. 

On the side of science, all is law, order, and friendli¬ 
ness. On the side of religion, all is miracle, confusion, 
and hostility. On the one side, knowledge is everything, 
and faith, nothing. On the other, faith is everything, and 
knowledge, nothing. On the one side, the people claim 
to be men, and, as such, they stand upright in any pres¬ 
ence whatever. On the other, they claim to be worms, 
and, as such, they grovel in the dust before their deities. 
On the one side, guided by reason, science, and common- 
sense, the people put their trust in their own exertions, 
and hence rarely fail in any of their undertakings. On 


THE CREATION. 


141 


the other, discarding reason, science, and common sense, 
they put their trust in their deities, and hence rarely 
succeed in any of their undertakings. On the one side, 
we are taught that all diseases and other evils proceed 
from none but natural causes, and hence can be cured or 
prevented by none but natural means. On the other, we 
are taught that all these things proceed from supernatural 
or god-causes, and can be cured or prevented only by 
supernatural or god-means. 

On the one side, we are taught that the earth is a globe 
revolving in space; and that there are countless millions 
of other worlds, scattered, in all directions and at all dis¬ 
tances, throughout the infinite expanse. On the other, 
we are taught that the earth alone, with her appendages, 
constitutes the entire universe; that it is flat and stationary; 
that what we call the sky is a firmament or solid structure, 
placed, like a vast inverted bowl, over the earth; that, to 
keep them from falling, the sun, the moon, and the stars, 
all necessarily at an equal distance from the earth, are 
set, or stuck like nails, into the under side of this firma¬ 
ment ; that, on the upper side of this firmament, and, of 
necessity, above the sun, the moon, and the stars, are vast 
reservoirs of water, which, at the time of the creation, 
were provided for the benefit of the earth, and which, at 
the pleasure of the gods who live up there, can be made 
to pour down upon the earth, through windows or open¬ 
ings, made for that purpose, in the solid sky or firmament. 
As I shall fully demonstrate, this is the description, 
given in the Bible, of the entire universe. This descrip¬ 
tion is said to have been given by inspiration of the God 
that made the universe ; of Jehovah, the God of the Jews, 
and one of the adopted Gods of the Christians. We are 
taught, furthermore, that to even doubt the truth of this 
description, is a sin of so fearful a nature that it insures 
the eternal damnation of all who commit it. 

In all of these, and in a thousand other things, we 
behold the unmistakable evidences of an inevitable and 


142 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


an irreconcilable conflict which is now going on, between 
science and religion, and which, of necessity, must continue 
to go on, until one or the other of them has ceased to have 
any advocates among the inhabitants of earth. In vain 
may religious demagogues cry, “ Peace! peace! ” when, 
from the very nature of these two systems, there never can 
be any peace between them. Either science or religion is 
bound to be utterly false; and there never can be any 
permanent peace between the false and the true. If, as 
science teaches, the forces eternally inherent in matter 
produce all the phenomena of nature, then it is evident 
that the gods do not produce any of them. Indeed, as I 
have already said, there cannot be, upon this hypothesis, 
any such things as gods. If, on the other hand, as religion 
teaches, the gods, directly or indirectly, produce all these 
phenomena, then it is evident that the physical forces do 
not produce any of them. Indeed, as I have already said, 
there cannot be, upon this hypothesis, any such things as 
physical forces; what we are accustomed to call such 
being really the powers exerted by the gods. The gods 
and the physical forces , therefore —two entirely distinct sets 
of causes for the same single set of effects —cannot possibly 
both be realities . If, then, gravity, electricity, magnetism, 
chemical affinity, etc., be real forces, eternally inherent in 
matter, then, of necessity, the gods—the Brahms, the 
Josses, the Juggernauts, the Jehovahs, etc.—must be en¬ 
tirely imaginary beings; and vice versa. 

As I have already said, and as I have promised to 
demonstrate, the Bible everywhere represents the earth 
as flat and stationary; the sky as a firmament or solid 
structure, into which, to keep them from falling, the 
heavenly bodies are all set or stuck, etc. The Vedas, the 
Zend Avesta, the Bagh-Vat-Gheta, the Shaster, the Koran, 
and all the other great fundamental books of religion, 
substantially teach these very same doctrines. No one, 
therefore, can reject these doctrines, without, thereby, also 
rejecting all the sacred books of the world, which teach 


THE CREATION. 


143 


them, and all the gods of the world, from whom these 
books are supposed to be derived. Hence it is that no 
religious sect have ever rejected these doctrines. Since 
religion , then, is bound to retain these doctrines, and since 
science is bound to reject them, there cannot possibly be 
any peace while religion and science both exist. 

Until quite recently, the champions of religion were 
themselves the very ones who most earnestly contended 
that the teachings of science and those of religion could 
never, by any possibility, be made to harmonize. When 
Galileo taught that the earth was a globe revolving in 
space, the champions of religion, with righteous indigna¬ 
tion, promptly charged, and effectually proved, that his 
teachings were in direct conflict with the teachings of the 
Bible, and of the Christian Church. Having proved this 
fact, they would have proceeded to burn him, had he not, 
on his bended knees, in the most solemn manner, recanted 
these his infidel teachings, and declared them to be wicked 
lies prompted by the devil. So when the brave Bruno 
taught that there were other worlds besides the earth, the 
champions of religion, with their usual righteous indigna¬ 
tion, promptly charged, and effectually proved , that his 
teachings were in direct conflict with those of the Bible y 
and of the Christian Church. Having proved this fact, they 
proceeded to burn, with the utmost cruelty, this great and 
good man who, with an almost unparalleled heroism, chose 
to suffer so horrible a death rather than recant the sublime 
truths he had taught. 

And these cases are only samples of the manner in 
which the Church, so long as she retained the power to do 
so, was accustomed to treat those who advocated the now 
well established truths of science. She has never acknowl¬ 
edged that her teachings on the subjects in question were 
erroneous, or that her treatment of Galileo, Bruno, and 
other great scientists was wrong. She still worships, in 
the same manner, the same bloody God; she still holds, 
as infallible truth, the same grossly unscientific teachings 


144 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


of the Bible ; and she still inculcates the same principles 
of intoleration that led her then, in the zenith of her 
power, to commit so many acts of monstrous atrocity. 
Having no longer the power to burn scientists, as infidels, 
at the stake, she still exultingly dooms them to eternal 
burnings in a place which she calls hell. If she only had 
the power, what would she not still do to scientists and all 
others who reject her absurd dogmas? 

It is only since the Church has begun to be worsted in 
the conflict—only since she has been compelled to act on 
the defensive—only since she has been made to tremble 
for her own existence, that her champions have thought 
of crying, “ Peace! peace! ” or of trying to show that the 
teachings of science and those of the Bible can ever be 
made to harmonize. Those persons, then, who cry, “ Peace! 
peace! ” when, from the very nature of the case, there can¬ 
not possibly be any peace, are evidently either sadly 
wanting in common • honesty, and are merely giving forth 
the hypocritical, the selfish, and the cowardly cry of the 
badly whipped, or else are wofully ignorant of the respect¬ 
ive teachings of science and the Bible, as well as of the 
fearfully blood-blackened history of the Christian Church. 

Since, therefore, the teachings of science and those of 
religion cannot, by any possibility, both be true, and 
since, from their very nature, they must, inevitably, so 
long as they both exist, keep up a hurtful conflict, between 
their respective sets of advocates, it becomes a matter of 
the utmost importance that we know on which side the 
truth does lie ; that we know which set of assigned causes , 
the gods or the physical forces , are the real producers of all 
the phenomena of nature, and which set are base imposi¬ 
tions, put upon the credulity of mankind, for selfish and 
ignoble purposes, by cunning and unscrupulous men. 
Having, by a thorough investigation, correctly determined 
this question, we can entirely dispense with either science 
or religion, and thus be spared all the trouble and expense 


THE CREATION. 


145 


of the one or the other of these two utterly antagonistic 
systems. 

Are we, then, entirely dependent upon unchangeable 
laws, eternally existing in nature herself—upon laws with 
which we may become acquainted, and in harmony with 
which we may learn to live; or are we entirely at the 
mercy of a set of angry, jealous, capricious, and blood¬ 
thirsty beings, called gods, with whom we can never 
become acquainted, and, in harmony with whom, we can 
never learn to live ? Are we, indeed, at the mercy of a 
set of beings who are themselves subject to no laws at all, 
who, to glut their cruel and unreasonable vengeance, have 
had untold millions of men, women, and children indis¬ 
criminately butchered; who, for the same purpose, have 
•even had their own innocent sons foully murdered; who 
.continue to bring men into existence only to burn them 
forever, in fire and brimstone; who can never get on with¬ 
out vast armies of priests to tell them what to do, and 
how to do it; who can be bribed into something like good 
humor only by the most extravagant presents of roast- 
beef, roast-mutton, roast human flesh, etc., or by the most 
unmanly prostrations of ourselves in the dust before them ; 
who require us to engage in the most cowardly winnings 
for mercy, which we must declare that we do not deserve; 
who require us to heap upon them the most fulsome pro¬ 
testations of love, which we are not expected to feel; who 
require us to make the most positive professions of a per¬ 
fect faith—which we never possess—in the monstrously 
absurd doctrine that one particular god, an old bachelor, 
is the father of another god as old as himself, and that 
these two gods, and a third god, a kinsman of theirs, con¬ 
stitute only one single god ? Are we, I repeat, as taught 
by science, dependent upon the beautiful and harmonious 
laws of nature, or are we, as taught by religion, depend¬ 
ent upon these monstrous gods and demi-gods ? In order 
±o correctly determine this question, we should lay aside 


146 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


all our prejudices, and fully and fairly examine the testi¬ 
mony on both sides. 

It is a self-evident fact that, of necessity, the universe 
is either created or uncreated. If it be created, then, of 
necessity, there must have been some pre-existing person 
or power that created it. If, on the other hand, it be un¬ 
created, then, of equal necessity, there never could have 
been any such pre-existing creative person or power. The 
whole question, therefore, rests entirely upon the truth or 
the falsity of the story of creation. This story is vari¬ 
ously told in the world’s various systems of theology. 
That version of it, however, found in the Bible is, of course, 
the one to which I shall principally adapt the present dis¬ 
cussion. 

We find the universe-to be composed of three essen¬ 
tial elements, space, matter, and duration. Of these three 
elements, space and duration are universally admitted to 
be, from their very nature, necessarily infinite^eternal, and, 
of course, uncreated. Having these two eternal and un¬ 
created elements to begin with, therefore, we find it just as 
easy to conceive that the one remaining element, matter, is 
also eternal and uncreated, as it is to conceive the same 
things of the person or the power that, otherwise, must 
have created it. Indeed, for my own part, I find it much 
easier to conceive these things of the universe, which I 
know does exist, and two-thirds of the essential elements 
of w T hicli I know are eternal and uncreated, than to con¬ 
ceive them of some purely assumed being, or set of beings, 
of "whose existence I have not a particle of proof. 

If, however, matter was created, then, before its crea¬ 
tion, infinite space, being entirely free from all forms of 
matter, must, of necessity, have been a perfect vacuum. 
Where, then, at that time, was your assumed Creator, and 
what was he ? Since there never could have been any out¬ 
side to space, he must, of necessity, have existed entirely 
inside of space, if he had any existence at all; and since, 
as taught by all his worshipers, he was omnipresent, he- 


THE CREATION. 


147 


must, of equal necessity, have been co-extensive with 
space. Besides this, since matter, as yet, had no exist¬ 
ence, he could not have contained anything material in his 
own composition. It is evident, then, that, since the total 
absence of all matter constitutes a perfect vacuum, he 
must, of necessity, have been just such a vacuum. It is 
equally evident, also, that, since it is utterly impossible 
for two distinct perfect vacuums to occupy the same space, 
at the same time, he must, of necessity, have been the very 
same perfect vacuum to which, as we have already seen, 
space itself reduces, on the hypothesis that all the matter 
of the universe was once entirely absent. In other w T ords, 
empty space indisputably becomes your God, and your 
God becomes empty space. I defy any escape from this 
conclusion so fatal to the cause of my opponents. 

Be all this as it may, however, for his dwelling-place, 
God certainly was dependent upon space, a thing which he 
had not created. For the measure of liis existence, he was 
also, in like manner, dependent upon duration, another 
thing which he had not created. These two essential ele¬ 
ments of the universe not only could, but also, of neces¬ 
sity, actually did exist independent of him. He, how¬ 
ever, as you plainly see, could not, and hence, of necessity, 
did not exist independent of either of them. At the very 
outset, therefore, we find him to have been, of necessity, a 
dependent being—dependent upon at least two-thirds of 
the essential elements of the universe. 

Besides all this, it is a fact, universally admitted by all 
intelligent persons, that nothing a£ a cause can ever possi¬ 
bly give forth, as an effect, any thing which it does not it¬ 
self contain. If, then, your God, as a cause, ever gave 
forth, as an effect, all the matter of the universe, it is evi¬ 
dent that this matter, in some form, must, of necessity, 
have been eternally present in himself. But, as w^e have 
already seen, he was himself, of necessity, eternally present 
in space. Of equal necessity, therefore, all the matter o£ 
the universe, being present in himself—being, as it were. 


148 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


an element in his own composition, must have been pres¬ 
ent wherever he was himself present. In other words, 
matter must of necessity If&ve been eternally present in 
space, just as it is present, therein, to-day. Of necessity, 
then, matter and space have eternally borne the very same 
relation to each other that they bear to-day. In other 
words, the entire material universe has, of necessity, eter¬ 
nally existed just where and just as it exists to-day. Con¬ 
sequently no such creation as you teach ever could have 
taken place; and no such Creator as you teach ever could 
have existed. 

Although it is utterly impossible to conceive that any¬ 
thing ever came forth from your God which was never in 
him, yet "we now perceive that, if we would retain any ap¬ 
parent use for him, it will never do to have matter eter¬ 
nally present in himself, and he eternally present in space, 
as he necessarily must have been. Let us, therefore, as do 
our priests, assume that matter was originally entirely 
wanting throughout the infinite extent of God himself and 
of space. Then, as we have already seen, he and space, 
representing as they do the entire absence of matter, both, 
of necessity, reduce to one and the same absolutely bound¬ 
less perfect vacuum. 

We have now arrived at that condition which must, of 
necessity, have existed previous to the creation of matter. 
We have arrived at what you call the Creator or Great 
First Cause—at an infinite perfect vacuum, and that alone. 
From this infinite perfect vacuum, then—from this God, if 
you prefer the latter term—we must evolve the whole lhate- 
rial universe, or else forever abandon the ideas of a special 
creation, and a personal God. But from such a vacuum, 
how can we evolve matter? None of the elements of mat¬ 
ter are present inside of this vacuum, and there is no out¬ 
side to it. How, then, can it possibly give forth into being, 
throughout its own infinite extent, that which itself never 
contained, and which could never have come from any 
other source? 


THE CREATION. 


149 


In addition to all this, the creation of the universe—if 
any such creation ever occurred at all—must of necessity 
have required some kind of action, or motion on the part 
of the Creator. But motion, as you all know, essentially 
consists in a change of place. And is our perfect vacuum 
capable of any such change of place? Certainly not. 
Since it—since he, if you please,* already extends every¬ 
where, it is evidently utterly impossible for him to have 
the slightest motion, in whole or in part, in any direction. * 
Being, from his very nature, essentially omnipresent, he 
must, of necessity, like space, with which we have seen 
that lie is identical, remain, through all eternity, perfectly 
motionless everywhere. It is evident, therefore, that, 
from this his utter incapability of motion, an infinite or 
omnipresent God could never have created anything at 
all; much less the whole boundless universe. In order 
that he may be able to create anything at all, he must, of 
necessity, be capable of motion. In order that he may be 
capable of motion, he must, of necessity, be less in extent 
than is the space inside of which he is to move. Just as 
soon, however, as we draw him in, from infinity, on all 
sides, we necessarily give him limits, and shape, and ren¬ 
der him a finite being, utterly incapable of ever producing 
the infinite universe. Indeed, such a being, flying in a 
straight line, with a speed billions of times greater than 
that of light, or of electricity, could never, in all the eons 
of eternity, reach a point any nearer the end of space than 
was the point from which he started. No matter, then, 
how extensive each one of these finite beings might be, and 
no matter how great might be his rate of motion, it would 
evidently require an infinite number of them to occupy in¬ 
finite space, and to create the infinitude of material forms 
contained therein. 

Besides all this, since God and space, as we have 
already seen, of necessity, reduce to the very same perfect 
vacuum, how can the one be made less in extent than the 
other? How can they be separated? In what respect do 


15G 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


they differ? Can this same perfect vacuum, under the 
one name, differ, in any respect, from itself, under the 
other name? Can it, under the one name, be separated 
from itself, under the other name? Can two entirely 
distinct, and yet exactly similar, perfect vacuums occupy 
the same space at the same time? If they cannot, then is 
not either God or space, of necessity, a thing of the 
imagination alone? And since space certainly does exist, 
must not God, of necessity, be the imaginary personage or 
perfect vacuum? If, however, they can both occupy the 
same space, at the same time, and if the one called God be 
less in extent than the one called space, in what respect 
does that portion of the universal perfect vacuum, in 
which the God-vacuum is present, differ from that portion 
in which it is not present? Can perfect vacuity be 
doubled or condensed? What can mark our God-vacuum’s 
boundaries? When he, a perfect vacuum, departs from 
any portion of the universal perfect vacuum, does not 
perfect vacuity, of necessity, still remain in that portion 
just the same as in all others? So when he arrives in any 
portion of the universal perfect vacuum, can the arrival of 
his perfect vacuity make any change in the perfect vacuity 
already existing there? Can his presence differ, in any 
respect, from his absence? If not, can he have any exist¬ 
ence at all? 

Besides all this, since every act and every motion is 
universally admitted to be an effect , and since every effect 
must, of necessity, have a cause , what was it that caused 
this perfect-vacuum God to begin the work of creation, just 
when he did, after he had, of necessity, spent an absolute 
eternity in total inaction? Whatever that cause may have 
been, it could not have previously been in action. If it 
had been, it would, of course, have aroused the Creator to 
action sooner. What was it, then, that caused that cause, 
after an eternity of inaction, to begin acting at that partic¬ 
ular moment? So of all the still more remote causes: 
what caused each one of them, for the first time in all 


THE CREATION. 


151 


eternity, to begin acting just when it did? We are bound 
to have an infinite chain of causes all acting before the 
first action of our perfect-vacuum God. Theologians, then, 
evidently speak falsely, when they declare him to be the 
“Great First Cause.” What were all these causes, and 
where were they? As to what they were, I will leave 
theologians to determine. As to where they were, how¬ 
ever, I can very easily determine for myself. Since there 
never was any outside to space, they must, of necessity, 
have existed inside of space, if they had any existence at 
all. But, as we have already seen, there was nothing, 
inside of space, except perfect vacuity. Of necessity, this 
had always existed unchanged; and, not being itself, as 
yet, aroused to action, it could not possibly have acted on 
itself to cause itself to begin acting. Will theologians be 
so kind as to explain away these difficulties? 

Thus, by a series of strictly logical arguments, all based 
upon premises which no sane man will dispute, I have now 
fully demonstrated the fact that no being, who is either 
finite or infinite in the extent of his presence, could ever 
have created the universe. But, of necessity, all beings 
are bound to be, in this respect, either finite or infinite. I 
have, therefore, demonstrated that no being of any kind 
ever created the universe. In other words, I have dem¬ 
onstrated that it was never created at all; that, of ueces- 
sity, it is absolutely eternal in its existence, and self-sus¬ 
taining in its powers. I will now proceed, in the same 
manner, to demonstrate the same facts in regard to a being 
who is either finite or infinite in the duration of his exist¬ 
ence. 

All intelligent persons will, of course, admit that, if the 
universe was ever created at all, the period of duration, 
which has elapsed since its creation, must, of necessity, 
be a finite period, containing six thousand years, more or 
less. They will also admit that the whole duration of 
God’s existence, up to the present moment, is necessarily 
composed of the period that elapsed before the creation , 


152 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


plus the period that has elapsed since that event. No one 
will think of claiming that there is any eternity in the six 
thousand years, more or less, that have elapsed since the 
creation. If, then, God’s existence be eternal, as all his 
worshipers declare that it is, and as it must be to render 
him of any advantage to them, the eternal portion of it 
must, of necessity, be that period which elapsed before the 
creation. But, as you are all bound to admit, an infinite or 
eternal period is, of necessity, utterly incapable of ever 
having an end, or of ever growing any less. Were we to 
multiply a line of small figures, a million miles in length, 
by itself a million times, then raise the result to the mill¬ 
ionth power, and then let every unit in the result repre¬ 
sent a million of ages, the period thus indicated, taken 
from eternity—from the period which you correctly claim 
that God must, of necessity, have existed before he began 
the work of creation—would not, in the least, diminish the 
extent of that period. Indeed, no period, however incon¬ 
ceivably immense it may be, can be infinite or eternal, if it 
ever does, or even can, become any less. 

That period of God’s existence, however, which pre¬ 
ceded the point at which he began the work of creation, 
did grow less, and did have an end. It could not have been 
otherwise, and yet God reach that creative point at all. 
No matter in what part of the infinitude of that which we 
call the past, you fix the creative point in question, it is 
evident that, of necessity, before he could possibly reach 
that point, God had first to entirely live out—completely end 
all that portion of his existence which preceded that point. 
This is a self-evident fact which no intelligent person will 
attempt to dispute. However inconceivably immense that 
period may once have been, it had, of necessity, to grow 
less and less continually, until it had all elapsed, and the 
creative point had been reached. Had it not thus con¬ 
tinually grown less and less until it finally came to 
an end, the creative point, as you are all bound to 
see, could never, by any possibility, have been reached at 


THE CREATION. 


153 


all. Thus you see that God could not have lived, and, 
consequently, did not live, during an infinite or eternal 
period, previous to the point at which you place the crea¬ 
tion. The pre-creative period of his existence could not 
possibly have had an end, as we see that it certainly did 
have, without first having had a beginning. It could not 
possibly have been finite, when taken in the one direction, 
and infinite, when taken in the other. I have now fully 
demonstrated, therefore, that God himself, of necessity, 
had a beginning, if the universe had. In order, then, to 
make him eternal, we must, of necessity, place the eternal 
portion of his existence in the period which has elapsed 
since the universe has been in existence. In order to make 
this period eternal, however, we must, of necessity, make 
the existence of the universe itself eternal. This, of neces¬ 
sity, renders the universe uncreated, and leaves us no use 
at all, and no room, for a Creator. 

From all this, you are bound to admit that, if there 
ever was any Creator at all, he was, of necessity, a finite 
being; that, like ourselves, he had a beginning of exist¬ 
ence ; and that, like ourselves, he is capable of having an 
end of existence. Which will you do, then, entirely 
renounce the absurd ideas of a special creation and a per¬ 
sonal Creator, or accept, for the Creator, a finite being, 
like ourselves? If you choose the former horn of this 
dilemma, you become, like myself, an Infidel—such a per¬ 
son as your Church, so long as she had the power to do so, 
always burnt, and such a person as she still delights to 
doom to eternal burnings, in a place which she has in¬ 
vented for the express purpose of such burnings, and 
which she calls hell. If you choose the latter horn, you 
must, of necessity, have an older God to bring your Crea¬ 
tor into existence; a still older God to bring that God into, 
existence, and so on for an infinite number of Gods. You 
are in precisely the condition of the man who attempted 
to account for the supposed stability of the earth by 
assuming that the earth stood on a turtle’s back; that this 


154 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


turtle stood on another turtle’s back, and so on down 
through an infinite series of turtles. In this case, some¬ 
thing had to reach all the way down, through infinite 
space; and, since one turtle could not possibly do this, an 
infinite number of turtles had to do it. In your case, 
something has to reach all the way back, through infinite 
duration; and, since one God cannot possibly do this, an 
infinite number of Gods must do it. There is no possible 
alternative. 

Besides all this, what proof have you that your present 
God will continue to live forever in the future ? Since he 
certainly did entirely live out all that portion of his exist¬ 
ence which preceded the creation, why may he not, in like 
manner, entirely live out all that portion which follows the 
creation? May not an infinite series of Gods, then, be 
just as necessary in the future, as I have shown them to 
have been in the past ? 

In addition to all these things, it is a self-evident fact 
that, in whatever way it is possible for a single individual 
of any kind to derive his existence, it is equally possible 
for other individuals of the same kind to derive their exist¬ 
ence. It is evident, therefore, that, in whatever way your 
God derived his existence, other Gods of the same kind 
may have derived theirs. What proof have you, then, 
that your God is the only God there is ? If your God be 
self* existent, why may not other Gods be self-existent 
also? If your God resulted from pre-existing causes, why 
may not other Gods have resulted from the same causes ? 
Bo, on the other hand, if all the other gods are the results of 
mere assumptions on the part of the ignorant and super¬ 
stitious people who first worshiped them, why may not 
your God be the result of a similar assumption on the part of 
the equally ignorant and superstitious people who first wor¬ 
shiped him ? I propose to prove that all gods, yours not 
excepted, are equally the results of mere assumptions. 

The Bible makes no attempt to prove the existence of 
a God. It simply assumes his existence as something in 


THE CREATION. 


155 


which the people of pre-Bible times already belived. 
Your belief in the existence of a God, therefore, does not 
rest on the testimony of the Bible, but on the mere opinions 
and assumptions of the ignorant and superstitions pagans 
who lived before there was any Bible. And of how much 
value, as evidence, in such a case, are the mere opinions 
and assumptions of such men? Were men thus totally 
ignorant of all the physical forces of nature, and filled 
with the most absurd superstitions, any better qualified to 
arrive at the truth in regard to this matter than are the 
great scientists and philosophers of the present time ? If 
not, can you be absolutely certain that they actually did 
find a real God ? If, without any effort on their own part, 
those grossly ignorant men really did find such a being, 
why is it that, after the most careful tests, and the most 
thorough researches, none of the great scientists and phi¬ 
losophers, of the present age, have ever been able to find 
even the faintest trace of him? Besides this, admitting 
that those ignorant primitive men really did find a genuine 
God, are you sure that he was the same God that you now 
worship ? 

You claim that your God often revealed himself, in va¬ 
rious ways, to his first worshipers. This, however, is pure 
assumption. You have not a particle of proof that such 
was the fact. You may just as well, therefore, let your 
God rest directly upon a pure assumption, as to have him 
rest upon purely assumed proofs. Besides this, these very 
same assumptions are made by every other religious sect, 
to prove the existence of their gods. And is not pure as¬ 
sumption worth as much in their case as it is in yours ? 

Admitting, however, that your God did reveal himself 
to his first worshipers, may not each of the other gods 
have revealed himself, in like manner, to his first worship¬ 
ers? What proof have you that there is only one God, 
and that your God is that one? What single argument 
can you adduce in favor of your own God, that cannot, 
with equal force and propriety, be adduced by every other 


156 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


sect in favor of theirs? Do yon wish to arrive at the truth 
in regard to the various gods, or do you wish, at all haz¬ 
ards, and without regard to truth, to sustain your own 
particular God ? If Jehovah and Jesus were really false 
Gods, and the Bible a false book, would you wish to know 
these facts, or would you rather ignorantly cling to these 
Gods and this book, even though they were really false ? 
If all gods be, as I hold that they are, merely priestly im¬ 
positions upon the credulity of mankind, are you willing 
to know this fact and to reject these impositions? If you 
are not—if you prefer to be blind to the truth, and tied to 
impositions, then I have nothing more to say to you. I 
do not wish to cast my pearls before such swine. If, how¬ 
ever, you love truth more than you love your priest-made 
and priest-paying creeds, then let us reason together; let 
us investigate these things. 

If we take a thousand of the world’s principal gods, 
you will promptly condemn nine hundred and ninety-nine 
of them as wicked priestly inventions. I will do the same. 
In regard to all of these gods, we have both been accus¬ 
tomed to exercise our reason. Only in regard to the one 
remaining God will we differ—only in regard to the par¬ 
ticular God with whom you were thoroughly stuffed, be¬ 
fore you were old enough to reason, and concerning whom 
you have never since dared to exercise your reason. I, 
having exercised my reason in regard to this God, just as 
I have in regard to all the others, reject him, just as I re¬ 
ject them. You would do the same, had you, like myself, 
dared to exercise your reason concerning him, as you have 
exercised it concerning them. It is an indisputable fact, 
that all mankind uniformly reject all the gods concerning 
whom they are accustomed to exercise their reason. Had 
you been born a Brahmin, you would then have dared to 
exercise your reason concerning your present Gods, Jeho¬ 
vah, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost, and would certainly have 
rejected them, just as all do who do reason concerning 
them, and just as you yourself reject all the gods concern- 


THE CREATION. 


157 


ing whom you do reason. In that case, however, you 
would not have dared to reason concerning Bralim, and, 
consequently, would have accepted him, just as you now 
accept the only Gods concerning whom you have never 
dared to reason. And thus it is with all other men and all 
other gods. Where reason is, gods are not. 

It is a well-known and universally admitted fact, that 
all the gods of the world, without a single exception, have 
had their origin in primitive conditions of society, and 
among men groveling in ignorance and superstition. No 
god ever was, and, from the very nature of the case, no 
god ever could be successfully started among educated and 
intelligent people; and, for obvious reasons, no god ever 
was, or ever could be, in his character, superior to the 
conceptions of the men who originated him. Indeed, every 
one of the gods, of whom we have any knowledge, lias 
been simply a reflection of the race, the color, the nation¬ 
ality, the opinions, etc., of the men who invented him. As 
a cause, these men could not possibly give to him, as an 
effect, any characteristics which they themselves did not 
possess. They could not do otherwise than make him in 
their own “image and likeness.” Hence it is that the gods 
of the Hindoos are all Hindoos; the gods of the Chinese, 
all Chinamen; the gods of the Africans, all Africans, etc. 
Hence it is, too, that in every lineament of his character, 
the God of the Hebrews was a Hebrew. Hence it is that 
he never claimed to be anything else than a Hebrew, and 
never claimed to be the God of any other people. Hence 
it is that he so faithfully reflected the selfishness, the jeal¬ 
ousy, treachery, the bloodthirstiness, the love of polygamy, 
and all the other traits of character that were prominent 
among the Hebrews at the time they framed his character. 
Hence it is that he so faithfully reflected their fondness 
for roast-beef and roast-mutton, and their abhorrence of 
swine’s flesh. Hence it is* also, that he so faithfully re¬ 
flected their ideas of a flat and stationary earth, a solid sky 
or firmament, a day independent of the sun, etc. 


158 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


And all this is equally true of the world’s dozen or 
more demi-gods or Saviors. According to the teachings 
of their respective sets of followers, each of these demi¬ 
gods was the son of the principal god of the particular- 
country in which he chanced to appear; each one was 
born of a virgin of that same country; and each one was 
put to death for the salvation of the world. For obvious 
reasons, all these demi-gods have been of the same race,, 
color, nationality, opinions, and other characteristics, as 
the people among whom they have respectively appeared. 
In all respects, Chrishna was a pure Hindoo; and this fact 
proves that both his parents were Hindoos. In all 
respects, Mithra was a pure Persian; and this fact proves 
that both his parents were Persians. In all respects, 
Jesus was a pure Hebrew; and this fact proves that both 
his parents were Hebrews. So of all the rest of these so- 
called Saviors. Indeed, no people can well conceive of 
either a god or a demi-god as differing from themselves 
in race, color, opinions, etc. 

If, as you teach, your God be the common Father of 
all men, then, of necessity, he is just as nearly related to 
the negro race as he is to our own. If, moreover, as you 
also teach, he be no respecter of persons, then, of neces¬ 
sity, he must love the negro race just as much as he loves 
our own. Indeed, that would be a very degrading idea of 
him which would make him, like men, subject to the 
prejudices, the antipathies, and the affinities of race or 
color. Suppose, then, that, instead of selecting a woman 
of our own race and color , to be the mother of his spn, or, 
rather, of himself, he had seen fit to select an African 
virgin, and to have himself incarnated as a woolly-lieaded, 
thick-lipped , fiat-nosed , protrnding-jawed, spindle-shanked, 
long-lieeled, flat-footed “buck negro,” with the offensive odor 
peculiar to that race, could you have conceived of him as 
your God ? You very well know that you could not. No 
white man can conceive of a “darkie” as his God. This 
would be equally true, even were the “darkie’s” claim to> 


THE CREATION. 


159 


God-ship twice as well established as is that of Jesus. A 
white man can no more reflect a colored God than he can 
reflect a colored image in a looking-glass. So of all other 
races, and of all other colors. None of them can reflect 
gods differing from themselves. It is evident, therefore, that 
people of one race and of one color can never hope to suc¬ 
cessfully palm off their own gods—mere reflections of 
themselves—upon the people of another race and of 
another color, who are totally unable to reflect any such 
gods. All history goes to prove the truth of this assertion. 
So long as gods remain in use at all, every people will 
have gods like unto themselves. Show me the gods of a 
people, then, and I will describe those people. Show me 
the people and I will describe their gods. 

As I have already remarked, all the gods of the world 
have been assumed or invented by the ignorant and super¬ 
stitious men of primitive times. These assumptions or 
inventions seem to have been originally made simply to 
account for the various phenomena of nature, the real 
causes of which, those ignorant primitive men could 
neither perceive nor understand. Had the real causes of 
these phenomena been always known, men would never 
have needed any such things as gods; and, consequently, 
would never have thought of inventing them, or of assum¬ 
ing that they existed. Until comparatively recent times, 
however, the forces, now known to inhere in matter as 
essential properties or conditions thereof, were entirely 
unknowm. Primitive men had no idea of any agency or 
cause of motion, except the will of sentient beings, such 
as men and other animals. To them, therefore, all the 
phenomena of nature, very naturally, seemed to be pro¬ 
duced by the direct agency of living and concious, but 
invisible beings, with thoughts, appetites, and passions 
like those of men or of beasts. Some were supposed to 
resemble men in their forms and their characters. Others, 
in these respects, were supposed to resemble various kinds 
of beasts. These imaginary beings were called gods, and 


160 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


were accredited with power"sufficient to produce all the 
phenomena of nature. Thus thunder became the voice of 
a god, or else the sound of his violent stampings upon the 
floor of heaven. In like manner, wind became the breath 
of a god; while hurricanes, earthquakes, famines, pesti¬ 
lences, etc., became fearful exhibitions of the uncontroll¬ 
able fury, or of the implacable malignity of a god. All 
the gods, therefore, were originally represented as being 
subject to frequent, and, sometimes, entirely unaccountable 
fits of the most fearful fury; as harboring long pent-up 
feelings of the most horrible revenge; and as pouring out 
destruction alike upon the innocent and upon the guilty, 
without any distinction of age, sex, or condition. Of 
course such beings were regarded as far more the objects 
of fear than of love. 

It was perfectly natural, therefore, for men to seek, 
just as they did, to win the favor, or, at least, to turn away 
the anger of these terrible gods. Believing, as they did, 
that these gods had appetites and passions similar to their 
own, it was perfectly natural, too, for men to seek, just as 
they did, to propitiate the gods by the very same means 
they were wont to use in propitiating one another—that is, 
by means of offerings, supplications, adulations, etc. Since 
flesh constituted the principal article of food—the only 
wealth, in fact, of the people, it was, consequently, the 
most common and the most acceptable offering made by 
men to one another. They, therefore, very naturally sup¬ 
posed that it would also be equally acceptable to the gods. 
Hence it is that, in the earlier part of their respective ca¬ 
reers, while their respective sets of followers still lived 
savage or pastoral lives, and subsisted upon flesh, all the 
gods were wont to be propitiated by means of meat offer¬ 
ings. Over half the gods of the world are still propitiated 
in this manner. This is the manner in which your adopted 
God used to be propitiated, when he was the tutelary divin¬ 
ity of the Hebrew nation alone. His anger, which was 
constantly being aroused by one trifling matter or another, 


THE CREATION. 


161 


•could nearly always be bought off with a certain amount 
of roast beef, or roast mutton. Of these substantial arti¬ 
cles of diet, he was supposed to be exceeding fond; and 
upon their savory odors he was supposod to regale him¬ 
self, as they were sent up to him on columns of smoke and 
heated air. This is the plain teaching of the Bible. 

When, however, in certain countries, men abandoned 
the savage and the pastoral modes of living, when they 
turned their attention to the cultivation of the soil; when 
the mere obtaining of food ceased to be the principal ob¬ 
ject of existence; when regular governments were estab¬ 
lished; when kings and other great men, having an 
abundance of food drawn from agricultural sources, ceased 
to value or to demand presents of meats and other arti¬ 
cles of diet; when, in place of such presents, they began 
do demand, from their subjects or followers, certain marks 
of honor, and certain oaths or protestations of love, loy¬ 
alty, admiration, etc.; the gods of those countries were 
supposed to have undergone a similar change in their 
tastes and in their demands. In these countries, there¬ 
fore, the simple method of buying off the anger of the 
gods with meat offerings, gradually gave place to the 
method, now in use, of accomplishing the same object by 
offering to them immense amounts of cheap and fulsome 
flattery, protestations of love, etc. In order, however, to 
turn the people away from the the sacrificial method, to 
which they had always been accustomed, and get them to 
adopt other methods which, under the changed conditions 
of society, would be more profitable to priests, princes, 
and other great men, eertain fables had to be invented, to 
the effect that certain good men, or demi-gods, Chrishna, 
Mithra, Prometheus, Jesus, and others, had been offered, 
once for all, as meat-offerings or sacrifices, each to some 
fearfully offended god, and had thus rendered such sacri¬ 
fices no longer necessary. The abolition of the expensive 
•sacrificial method of appeasing the wrath of the gods was 
so good a thing that it would almost have justified the 


162 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


false means by which it was accomplished, had not equally 
absurd, expensive, and pernicious methods been adopted 
in its stead. 

If the gods know anything at all, they certainly know, 
better than any human being can inform them, just how 
good, how wise, how large, and how great they are; 
and, also, just what are their duties, their opinions, 
and their intentions. Notwithstanding all this, however, 
they are supposed, by their respective sets of followers, to 
have the bump of approbativeness so prodigiously devel¬ 
oped, and to be so totally devoid of modesty, that, al¬ 
though, for thousands of years, they have been daily and 
hourly told of their various excellences, they still take im¬ 
mense delight in having these same things repeated to 
their faces in the most, public and ostentatious manner. 
So extremely fond, indeed, are they supposed to be of this 
one kind of amusement that they devote almost their whole 
time to it. We are assured that they will pardon the most 
hardened of sinners, if he will only sprawl in the dirt be¬ 
fore them; have himself sprinkled with water, or soused 
into a goose-pond by one of their priests; stuff them with 
a goodly amount of this fulsome flattery; and profess to 
believe the monstrously absurd doctrin that a certain god is 
the father of another god as old as himself, and that 
these two gods and a third god, all three constitute only 
one god. I wish you, who style yourselves orthodox Chris¬ 
tians, to watch yourselves, whenever you go to * worship, 
and see whether the w*hole process does not consist in 
stuffing your God with a goodly quantity of pure “ blar¬ 
ney,” and in giving him a multitude of instructions in re¬ 
gard to what you seem to consider his various duties. 
When viewed in the light of reason, science, and common 
sense, how supremely ridiculous do these mummeries be¬ 
come ! And yet they constitute all there is, and all there 
can be, of that relic of barbarism and superstition called 
religious worship. But let us return to our subject. 

As x, y , z, etc., are assumed to represent the unknown 


THE CREATION. 


163 


quantities in an algebraic equation, so, as I have already 
said, the various gods were originally assumed to repre¬ 
sent the unknown causes of the various phenomena of 
nature. As x, y, z , etc., become totally useless the moment 
the unknown quantities, which they have been made to 
represent, become known, so, in like manner, the various 
gods become totally useless the moment the unknown 
causes, which they have been made to represent, become 
known. The gods, standing thus in the place of the 
unknown in nature, are evidently mere personifications of 
men’s ignorance. It is equally evident, too, that they are 
necessary just in proportion to the amount of that igno¬ 
rance. You all very well know that we never find any need 
of the gods, or any proof of their existence, in those 
things which we fully understand. Although you may not 
have sufficient moral courage to admit the fact, yet all of 
you, who possess ordinary intelligence, know very well 
that, in ignorance alone, we find all the need we have of 
the gods, and all the proof we have of their existence. 

To him who, like the originators of the various gods, 
is totally ignorant of all the forces inherent in matter, 
every phenomenon of nature requires the direct agency ofi 
a god for its production. To such a person, therefore, 
every phenomenon of nature constitutes a positive proof 
of the existence of such beings. To him who is ignorant 
of comparatively few of the physical forces, there are com¬ 
paratively few of the phenomena of nature that require 
the agency of a god in their production. To such a per¬ 
son, therefore, there are comparatively few proofs of the 
existence of such beings. Finally, to him who compre¬ 
hends the whole economy of nature, there if nothing at all 
that requires the agency of a god for its production. To 
such a person, therefore, there is no proof at all of the 
existence of any such beings. From all this, you can 
easily understand the well-known fact that, in all countries 
and all ages, the most ignorant people have always been 
the most firm believers in their respective gods, and that 


164 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


wliat you stigmatize as Infidelity has never prevailed except 
among the educated and intelligent. 

Since the gods cannot possibly reflect anything higher 
or nobler than the conceptions of the ignorant and super¬ 
stitious primitive men who invented or framed their char¬ 
acters, they are necessarily far inferior to the vastly finer 
conceptions of the greatest minds of the present day. In 
order, therefore, to still cling to these antiquated embodi¬ 
ments of ignorance and superstition, men must have their 
minds thoroughly religioned—tied back, as the word sig¬ 
nifies—from the light of the brighter present to the im¬ 
penetrable gloom of the dark past. To men whose minds 
are thus religioned—thus tied back to gods that never 
advance—there can never be any such word as progress, 
never any such motto as “Onward and Upward.” 

Although, at first, the gods were assumed merely to 
represent the unknown causes of natural phenomena, yet 
they soon became sources of wealth and of power to those 
who pretended to act as their agents or ministers. Around 
every god, of any note, therefore, there very naturally 
arose an order of selfish, cunning, and unscrupulous men, 
called priests, who made the god a means of drawing a 
luxurious living from the unrequited labors of others. 
These priests elaborated a system of religion—of tying 
men’s minds back—consisting mostly in meaningless but 
imposing ceremonies, calculated to impress the unreasoning 
rabble with a feeling of awe. In a thousand ways, these 
multitudinous ceremonies rendered the priests absolutely 
necessary to the people. In this way, the priests secured 
to themselves great honors, powers, immunities, and 
emoluments. Hence it is that no god has ever been able 
to get on without vast swarms of greedy priests, interpret¬ 
ers, advisers, etc., all supported in worse than idleness, 
upon the immense revenues drawn from the over-worked, 
over-taxed, and shamefully deluded people. From all 
this, you can easily understand why it is that, whenever 
any god has ceased to be a paying institution, his priests 


THE CREATION'. 


165 


have always promptly abandoned his service, and entered 
into the service of a better 'paying god. A poor god , like a 
poor man , rarely lias many friends, and especially among 
the priesthood, who always have an eye to the profits. 
Suppose, for instance, that Jehovah and Jesus should be¬ 
come extremely popular in India, and that the priests of. 
Brahm could receive ten times as much honor and money, 
by entering into tjieir service, as they could by remaining 
in the service of Brahm, how many of them, do you think, 
would remain in the service of this latter god ? So if 
Brahm should become extremely popular in this country, 
and if our priests could receive ten times as much honor 
and money, by entering into his service, as they could by 
remaining in the service of Jehovah and Jesus, how many 
of them, do you think, would remain in the service of 
these latter Gods? 

As might have been expected, these various systems of 
religion have been constantly coming into collision with 
one another. Nearly all history, indeed, is a mere recital 
of the inhuman butcheries and other horrible deeds perpe¬ 
trated upon one another, in the name of their respective 
gods, by the various sects of the world’s religionists. In¬ 
deed, there never was a god, of any note, that was not car¬ 
ried to eminence, by his worshipers, through rivers of human 
blood. This remark is especially true of one of the Gods 
that you profess to worship. This is the one you adopted 
from the Hebrews. Whether we regard the earlier part 
of his career, when he was merely the tutelary divinity of 
the Hebrew nation alone, or the later part, after he was 
adopted as one of the Deities of the Christian Church, we 
find that his record surpasses that of any other god in its 
fearful blackness of blood, of crime, and of woe. 

As I have already said, there is no proof at all of the 
existence of any such beings as gods, except the various 
phenomena of nature which they are supposed to produce. 
When, therefore, science establishes the fact that all these 
phenomena are produced by an entirely different set of 


166 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


causes, the forces essentially inherent in matter, the gods, 
of necessity, are driven out of existence, or at least com¬ 
pelled to hide themselves in the brains of those whose 
mental darkness has not yet been penetrated by the sun¬ 
light of science. Thus it has been with thunder, which, 
until comparatively recent times, was almost universally 
supposed to be, as represented in the Bible, produced by 
the direct agency of a god, either bellowing with his 
mighty lungs, or stamping upon the floor of heaven with 
his immense feet. Indeed, notwithstanding the united 
opposition of all the religious sects of the world, science 
has now succeeded in driving the gods from nearly all the 
phenomena of nature. When the light of science enters, 
the gods depart. 

Since every religionist is necessarily tied back to the 
unscientific belief that his gods are the producers of 
worlds, of motion, of heat, of light, of life—of all the phe¬ 
nomena of nature—he will never dare seek, and, conse¬ 
quently, will never be able to know, the true causes of any 
of these phenomena. So long as a man fully believes that 
a god is the cause or producer of a certain phenomenon, 
such as human life, for instance, he will never think of 
seeking out, among the forces inherent in matter, any other 
cause or producer of that phenomenon. Scientific re¬ 
searches of this kind are made by none except those who 
have come to doubt the assumed god-causes. In the eyes 
of religionists, however, to doubt a god-cause, for the phe¬ 
nomena in question, is to become an Infidel fit only for 
eternal burnings in hell. Hence it is that, while remaining 
such, no genuine religionist ever added anything to the 
treasures of science. Hence it is that nearly all the sub¬ 
lime truths ever brought to light from the great arcana of 
nature, have been brought to light by those, bravest and 
noblest of men whom you still stigmatize and persecute, 
and whom, so long as you had the power to do so, you 
were wont, with indescribable cruelty, to burn as hell-de¬ 
serving infidels. 


THE CREATION. 


167 


If, as you teach, your God be a person , then, of neces¬ 
sity, he must possess all the essential characteristics of 
personality. He must have shape of some kind, and this we 
can give him only by assigning to him certain limits or 
boundaries, and thus rendering him, of necessity, a finite 
being. If he moves , as he must to perform any works at 
all, he must, of necessity, be capable of changing place; 
and his absence must, in some way, differ from his presence. 
This, again, renders him, of necessity, a finite being; since, 
if he were infinite , he would necessarily be everywhere, all 
the time , and hence could not possibly move from one place 
to another. If he thinks , as he must to be an intelligent be¬ 
ing, there must, of necessity, be some point within him 
from which his thoughts proceed, and this point must, in 
some way, differ from all his other parts. Such difference 
of parts , however, involves the necessity of organization. 
So, if he has sex , as he must have to be a father , he must, 
of necessity, have organization , without which sex cannot 
exist. So of the faculties of seeing , hearing, loving, speaking, 
and all the other characteristics of personality. They all in¬ 
volve the necessity of organization, which cannot possibly 
be possessed by anything that is infinite. 

Having thus limited him in his extent or presence, by 
assigning to him these essential characteristics of person¬ 
ality, there must, of necessity, extend beyond him, in all 
directions, an infinity of space, over which a finite being, 
like himself, could never, in all the ages of eternity, pass 
even in one single direction. Thus you see that your 
personal God is totally inadequate to the work of creating, 
or of occupying and sustaining, the infinite universe. Your 
Bible, therefore, very wisely has him devote his entire 
time and attention to this world alone. Indeed, it has him 
devote most of his time and attention to a very small por¬ 
tion of this world. It has him, for many centuries, take 
up his abode in a house, among a small nation of semi¬ 
barbarians, and enjoy the roast-beef and other good things 
with which they supplied him. It has him beget his only 


168 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Son in this world, and for the benefit of this world alone. 
Indeed, it represents him as being totally ignorant of the 
existence of any other worlds, and even of the size and 
the shape of the earth. It represents him as believing 
that the earth is flat and stationary, that the sky is a solid 
structure or “firmament,” that the stars are little brilliant 
ornaments about the size of figs, set in this “firmament;” 
that day is independent of the light of the sun, etc. 
Finally, it has no one in his heaven but the inhabitants 
of this one little world alone. Would it not be well, then,, 
for you to follow the example of your Bible, and have him 
leave to an infinite number of other gods, or, better still, 
to the laws of nature, the care of the countless millions of 
mighty worlds and systems of worlds that roll, in their 
unspeakable glory, throughout the boundless regions of 
uncreated space? 

If, on the other hand, your God is not a person, and is 
not limited, as a person must be, what is he? What can 
he be but empty space, as I have already shown that he 
must be, or, at least, a shapeless, invisible, imponderable, 
impalpable, inaudible, illimitable, incomprehensible nega¬ 
tion, in every respect exactly similar to empty space, 
exactly equivalent to it, and exactly identical with it. He 
cannot be where space is not, nor can space be where he is 
not. Of necessity they are co-extensive and inseparable. 
If, then, they be not one and the same thing, in what 
respect do they differ? They have one, and only one, 
property, capacity, or characteristic. This is exactly-the 
same in both, and consists simply in infinite extension in 
all directions. They are both equally incapable of having 
either a beginning or an end, a top ora bottom, a center or 
a circumference. They are both equally incapable of 
being increased or diminished, multiplied or divided. 
They are both equally incapable of moving or of produc¬ 
ing motion, of seeing or of being seen, of hearing or of 
being heard, of feeling or of being felt, of loving or of 
being loved, of possessing knowledge or of imparting it. 


THE CREATION. 


169 


Indeed, it is a well established truth that no infinite 
quantity of any kind can possibly be either the subject or 
the object of any operation whatever. What, then, can 
your infinite, your shapeless, youj motionless God be, and 
what can he do, destitute, as he necessarily is, of all 
substance, of all thought, of all sensation, and of all con¬ 
sciousness ? 

If, as you teach, this infinite negation—this God of 
yours—thinks, his thoughts must, of necessity, both in 
space and in duration, have some point from which they 
emanate. It is obviously utterly impossible for a thought 
to simultaneously start into existence at every point, 
throughout the entirety of either infinite space or infinite 
duration. Your God’s thoughts, then, having thus a begin¬ 
ning both of their existence and of their -flight, are neces¬ 
sarily finite in their character, and hence utterly incapable 
of ever extending throughout the infinity of either space 
or duration; and, consequently, they are equally incapable 
of ever extending throughout the infinity of the thinker 
himself. The parts of your God, therefore, which are 
infinitely distant from the point from which his thoughts 
emanate, can never possibly know what those thoughts 
may be. Besides this, as we all know, thought requires 
an object as well as a subject. What, then, were the 
objects upon which your God exercised his thoughts dur¬ 
ing the eternity which, of necessity, must have preceded 
his first act of creation? During all that utterly endless 
period—which, however, according to your teachings, did, 
nevertheless, actually come to an end—there was nothing 
in existence except God himself. And do you pretend 
that he spent that utterly endless, and yet actually ended, 
period, thinking of nothing but himself? If so, what 
finally turned his thoughts from this eternal contemplation 
of himself? 

You may claim that he was not long thus utterly alone 
and totally unemployed; that he began the work of crea¬ 
tion very soon. Very soon after what? After the begin- 


170 


THE BIBEE ANALYZED. 


ning of his own existence, of course. On no other hypoth¬ 
esis, can we have him exist for any other than an eternal 
period, alone and unemployed, previous to his first act of 
creation. Of necessity, *he must have been alone and 
unemployed during all that period of his existence which 
preceded his first act of creation; and, of equal necessity, 
that period must have been of either finite or infinite 
duration. If it was a finite period—if he actually did, as 
you claim, exist only a short time alone and unemployed— 
then it is evident that, by going backward in duration, a 
little beyond the point at which the first act of creation 
was performed, we must, of necessity, reach a point beyond 
which he did not exist. This hypothesis necessarily 
renders him a finite being, and, as I have already ex¬ 
plained, involves the necessity of an infinite series of older 
Gods. This will never do. We have no possible alterna¬ 
tive, therefore, but to make the period in question one of 
infinite duration. This alternative, however, avails us 
nothing. It compels us to place God at an infinite dis¬ 
tance in duration beyond the point at which the first act 
of creation is assumed to have been performed. But, as I 
have already shown, an infinite period or distance in dura¬ 
tion, like this, is absolutely incapable of ever having an 
end, or of ever becoming any less. It is evident, then, 
that, when we have once placed God at an infinite distance 
in duration beyond the point at which the creation is 
assumed to have been begun, we necessarily render it 
utterly impossible for him to ever be at less than an infi¬ 
nite distance beyond that point. Consequently, he never 
could have reached, and, of course, never did reach, the 
point at all, at which the creation is assumed to have 
been begun. Your assumed creation, therefore, never 
could have been, and, consequently, never was performed 
at all. The universe is proven to be, of necessity, eternal 
in its existence ; your assumed Creator is proven to be, of 
necessity, a fabulous monster; and yourselves are proven 


THE CREATION. 


171 


to be the blinded victims of an outrageous priestly impo¬ 
sition. 

All these results are just as inevitably reached, no mat¬ 
ter how far back, in the eternal past, we may fix the point 
at which we assume that the work of creation was begun. 
In any case, there must, of necessity, be an undiminished 
and utterly undiminishable period lying still beyond that 
point—lying still between that point and your assumed 
Creator. Over this period, he can never pass. Indeed, it 
is just as utterly impossible for anything to come in, from 
beyond all space and all duration, to a point inside of 
both, as it is for that thing to go out, from such a point, 
and to pass entirely beyond them both. If either space 
or duration is infinite, when taken in the one direction, it 
must, of necessity, be equally infinite, when taken in the 
other. And now, which horn of this dilemma—the finite 
or the infinite—will you choose ? You are compelled to 
choose either the one or the other. Choose whichever 
you may, however, your cause is hopelessly lost. 

Besides all this, where is the point located, from which 
your God’s thoughts emanate? In wliat respects does this 
point differ from other points in himself and in space? 
And what acts upon this point, -more than upon others, to 
cause it to give forth thoughts? Where are your God’s 
senses or faculties of seeing, hearing, loving, hating, etc., 
located, and in what respects do these locations differ from 
other portions of himself and of space? In what does 
his sex consist, and where is it located? How and where 
did the seed or life-germ from which his Son sprang orig¬ 
inate, and by what means was it conveyed to the proper 
spot in the body of the mother? According to your own 
creeds, your God has neither body nor parts. What por¬ 
tion of him, then—what portion of infinite space—with 
which, as I have already shown, lie is everywhere exactly 
identical, and utterly inseparable—can be so brought to 
bear upon a woman as to put her in a condition to become 
a mother? Besides this, since, of necessity, infinite space 


172 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


and your infinite God coincide throughout their entire 
extent—since, of necessity, the very same portion of each 
must be brought to bear upon the woman, at the very same 
moment, and in the very same manner, how are we to 
know which is the father of the child, empty space, or your 
equally empty God? Finally, if either of them alone, or 
both of them together, can beget one child, why may they 
not,- in the same way, beget many children? Did the 
begetting of one child entirely exhaust their procreative 
powers ? If not, can any of our women be entirely safe, 
with both space and your God all around them? 

You teach that Jesus was literally begotten by just 
such a God as I have described; and yet you also teach 
that Jesus himself wag this very same God. If this doc¬ 
trine is not the climax of absurdity, I would like to know 
what that climax is. It would seem to be bad enough to 
have such an infinite, shapeless, motionless, substanceless, 
and incomprehensible negation beget a child at all. To 
have it beget itself, however, in the form of a child, is a 
thousand times worse. Your doctrine on this subject is 
far worse than that of the ancient pagans, who had 
their gods beget children in abundance, but did not have 
them beget themselves. Besides this, the manner in which, 
according to your own teachings, your God begot his Son,, 
or, rather, himself, seems to me to be far inferior to the 
manner in which those pagan gods are said to have begot¬ 
ten their offspring. From the best authorities we have on 
the subject, we learn that, when a god wished to beget 
himself a son—few gods, if any, would ever condescend to 
beget daughters upon human mothers—he sometimes ma¬ 
terialized himself, a la mode Katie King, and, in the sub¬ 
stantial form of a man, held genuine sexual intercourse 
with the woman—always a virgin—whom he had selected 
to be the mother of his son. At other times, he would 
enter into a living man—always a priest—and, through 
that man’s organs of sex, accomplish his divine purpose, 
just as spirits, of the present day, when wishing to give 


THE CREATION. 


173 


communications to the living, are said to accomplish their 
purpose, through the hands or the tongues of very sus¬ 
ceptible persons, called mediums. Of these two methods 
of procreation, the latter, being by far the more practical, 
seems to have been the one which the gods generally 
adopted. For obvious reasons, this method was also by 
far the more popular one of the two, among the well-fed 
priests whose bodies, as I have already said, were invari¬ 
ably used on these occasions. For my own part, I suspect 
that this more practical, natural, and sensible manner was 
the very manner in which your God begot his son, if he 
ever begot any such Son at all. Indeed, I cannot conceive 
of any better plan. 

Letting all these things pass, however, I wish to ask 
if any of you are so totally blinded by priestcraft as to 
imagine that your educated and intelligent priests them¬ 
selves believe a word of the monstrously absurd doctrines 
which, for pay and popularity, they preach to you concern¬ 
ing the utterly empty God whom they pretend to serve ? 
Do you imagine that they believe that this utterly empty 
God ever literally begot a son, and that the Son, so begot¬ 
ten, was himself this very some empty God that begot 
him? As shepherds, these priests do, indeed, feed the 
sheep. They feed them, too, on just such stuff as they 
perceive that the sheep like—on just such stuff as they 
perceive causes the sheep to make the finest yield of wool 
and the best quality of mutton. But does any intelligent 
shepherd, such as these are, ever himself swallow down the 
same kind of stuff that he feeds to his sheep ? And does 
such a shepherd usually feed his sheep long without also 
fleecing them ? For what but the profits does he labor ? 
The poor, stupid sheep may imagine that he unselfishly 
labors for their good alone. He himself, however, knows 
better. You play sheep. Your priests, the more intelli¬ 
gent of whom are generally thorough Infidels, play shep¬ 
herd. And who gets the wool ? 

You teaeli that your God is all pure spirit. Probably 


174 


THE BIBLH ANALYZED. 


he is. But what is pure spirit? The word spirit comes 
from the Latin spirare, to breathe, to blow, etc., and for¬ 
merly meant neither more nor less than the atmosphere or 
air which we breathe, and which, by many, was supposed 
to be a god. This was very justly regarded as an exceed¬ 
ingly great god. Upon him* depended the existence of all 
living things. So far as was then known—so far as is now 
known, in fact—he was omnipresent, if not omnipotent. In 
him, men were truly said to live, to move, and to have 
their being. Men were truly said to dwell in him, and he 
in them. He was truly said to produce plenty, by bring¬ 
ing rain; to produce famines, by withholding rain ; to pro¬ 
duce pestilences, by surrounding the people with malarious 
influences; and to remove pestilences, by removing these 
influences. This exactly corresponds with the description 
of your spirit-God. 

With this great and beneficent god you have combined 
the equally great and beneficent god, Helios, the sun, who 
was, very appropriately, called the “ Most High God.” To 
this latter god, your Sunday was, and still is, sacred. 
From him it takes its name, and he it is, under another 
name, that you worship on that day. In Greek, his 
name was Helios, from which our word holy is said to be 
derived. Your Holy Bible is simply the Helios Biblos , or 
Sun’s Book. Helios or the Sun was Joshua’s God. “Then 
spake Joshua to the Lord . . . and said, Sun, stand 

thou still upon Gibeon,” etc. “ The Lord ” and the “ Sun,” 
here addressed by Joshua, were, indisputably, one and the 
same person. This is the god who dwells in heaven, and 
from whom angels or messengers of light are said to 
come. 

The word ghost also means spirit or breath, and this 
was supposed to proceed from Helios, the sun. In a cer¬ 
tain sense, this supposition was obviously correct. The 
Holy Ghost, therefore, was simply the breath or spirit of 
the sun. When received by a person, the holy breath or 
holy spirit, so it was believed, could be re-breathed or im- 


THE CREATION. 


175 


parted by him to other persons. “And suddenly there 
came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind. 
. . .” This is spoken of the Holy Ghost or Sun’s 

breath, on the occasion of its coming upon the apostles 
after the resurrection of Jesus. If it was not wind, it cer¬ 
tainly was of a very windy nature. “ And when he had 
said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive 
ye the Holy Ghost.” As thus communicated by Jesus, 
the Holy Ghost was evidently nothing more nor less than 
breath. Having, however, as was supposed, originally come 
direct from Helios, it was very naturally called Holy Ghost. 
This Holy Ghost or sun’s breath was held to be a god 
of itself. Combining, however, as it apparently did, with 
the light of the sun, it and this latter God, the “ Father,” 
from whom all things proceed, were supposed, in some in¬ 
comprehensible manner, to constitute only one god. Thus 
you see that, in the sun and the air, you have two of the 
three persons who compose that utterly incomprehensible 
priestly invention called, from Helios, the “Holy Trinity.”" 
The third person, as you all know, is a human being, said 
to have been indirectly begotten by Helios, the “ Father,” 
through the agency of his holy breath or “Holy Ghost.” 
In themselves, all the persons who enter into this “ Holy 
Trinity”—this triple union of the sun, the air, and the 
human soul or spirit, are very good gods. I condemn only 
the false teachings of priests concerning them. 

As objects of worship, however, how came you by these 
three* persons? Had you anything more to do in the 
selecting of them to be, in their united capacity, your God, 
than you had in the selecting of your own sex, race, color, 
and nationality? Were you not simply born, and equally 
so, to all of these things? And is the fact that you 
happened to be born to a certain God, a certain race, a 
certain color, or a certain nationality, any proof that that 
is the only true God, true race, true color, or true nation¬ 
ality ? Who was it that unerringly led you to be born to 


176 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


the only true God, while he led the great majority of man- 
hind to be born to false gods ? 

Had you happened to be born to Buddhism, would you 
not, almost inevitably, have been just as sincere believers 
in Buddha, as you now are in Jesus and Jehovah? And, 
in that case, would the mere fortuitous circumstance of 
your having been born to him, constitute any proof that 
Buddha was the only true god ? Had an equal number of 
Buddhists happened to be born to Christianity, they 
would, almost inevitably, have been just as sincere Chris¬ 
tians as you now are. In that case, who would have had 
the true God, you, the Buddhists, or they, the Christians? 
Besides this, since it all depends upon the place of one’s 
birth, it is evident that, if yours be the only true God, the 
country in which you were born, and in which this God 
alone is worshiped, is the only true country to be born 
in. Is not that a very bad power, then, whatever it may 
be, that leads most men to be born in other countries to 
false gods ? 

As to the old and hackneyed sophistry concerning the 
marks of design, said to be visible in nature, I will simply 
say that no such marks of design exist. In all the phe¬ 
nomena of nature, we see marks, not of design, but of 
adaptation; of adaptation inevitably brought about by the 
forces eternally present in matter; of the adaptation of every 
cause to its effect, and of every effect to its cause. All 
men, all animals, all individualized objects of every kind, 
are just such, and such only, as the conditions or csftises, 
from which they proceed, are adapted to produce. These 
conditions or causes, in their turn, are just such, and such 
only, as the more remote conditions or causes, from which 
they proceeded, were adapted to produce. And so of still 
more remote conditions or causes as we go on backward 
forever around the great endless chain of causes and 
effects that constitutes the universe. No individualized 
object of any kind can possibly come into existence, as 
such, until all the conditions are present, upon which its 


THE CREATION. 


177 


production depends. When, however, all these conditions 
.are present, then it is equally impossible for that object, 
as such, not to come into existence. As there can be no 
effect without a cause, so there can be no cause without an 
effect. Plants and animals, like all other individualized 
objects, result, as such, from combinations of forces, con¬ 
ditions, and forms of matter which, in their elements at 
least, have eternally existed in the universe. Plants, 
animals, etc., were never “made’Vat all; and, although they 
are adapted to man’s sustenance, they were never produced 
with reference to his wants, or to anything else. Most of 
them came into existence before he did, simply because 
the conditions, necessary to their evolution and perpetua¬ 
tion, preceded the conditions necessary to his evolution 
and perpetuation. Indeed, since many of them enter into 
the conditions necessary to his existence, he could not 
appear until after tlieir appearance. It is folly, how¬ 
ever, to argue, as you do, that, since he needs them for 
his subsistence, they must have been made with reference 
to his wants. With equal propriety, you might extend 
this argument, and contend that, since the louse needs 
man for its subsistence, he must have been made with 
reference to its wants. In other words, you might very 
consistently contend that, in man, you discover marks 
which prove that he was designed to be food for the louse. 
A theological louse would be very likely to use this very 
argument. 

Admitting, however, that marks of design do exist in 
nature, to which one of the world’s many gods do these 
marks point as their author? How many chances in a 
thousand would your God have to be thus pointed out? 
Besides this, if the beauty and perfection present in nature 
prove the existence of a great God who designed them, 
do not the still greater beauty and perfection present in 
this God just as certainly prove the existence of a still 
greater God who designed them ? Thus you see that, by 


178 


THE BIBLEALYZED. 


proving too much, this stale old argument becomes worse 
than none at all. 

I have now full analyzed the general idea of a Creator, 
as equally applicable to any one of the world’s principal 
gods, and have thoroughly proved this idea to be utterly 
inconsistent with reason, science, and common sense. In 
other words, I have fully proved that there never could 
have been any such person as the Creator; and that, con¬ 
sequently, there never was any such event as the creation 
of the universe. I have also proved that all systems of 
religion, founded, as they all are, upon the false idea of 
a personal deity, are mere priest-invented systems of 
slavery, necessarily pernicious in their influences upon 
the minds, the conscience's, and the characters of men. 

In conclusion, I challenge any champion of any god to 
meet me in fair debate and refute my arguments. Con¬ 
vince me that I am in error, and that you do have the 
truth on your side, and I will at once become an ardent 
worshiper of your god, no matter which one of the 
world’s many gods he may be. You cannot convince me 
of these things, however, by merely heaping vile names 
and cruel persecutions upon me. In the name of your 
“Lord”—whoever that may be—you have long tried these 
arguments upon me in vain. By means of these argu¬ 
ments, you have, indeed, at times, succeeded in depriving 
me of the employment upon which myself and family 
depended for subsistence. You have, indeed, at times, 
succeeded in making me go hungry and cold. You have, 
indeed, at times, succeeded in making me suffer all the 
anguish that a fond, proud, and sensitive father can feel 
when he sees absolute want staring his loved little ones in 
the face. Yes, you have, indeed, succeeded in all these 
things, but you never have succeeded, and never can suc¬ 
ceed, by such means, either in convincing my reason, or in 
crushing out my manhood. Have you no other kind of 
arguments to advance upon the subject?—My next twa 


THE CREATION. 179 

lectures will be devoted more strictly to tlie Bible story 
of creation. 


LECTURE SIXTH. 

THE CREATION.—(CONTINUED.) 

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the 
earth.” These first ten words of the Bible contain two 
assumptions and one assertion. The assumptions are a 
God and a beginning; the assertion is a creation; and, 
upon these two assumptions and this one assertion, depend 
all the balance of the Bible, and all the fundamental doc¬ 
trines of the Christian Beligion. Indeed, one of these 
assumptions constitutes all the proof there is—if proof it 
may be called—of the existence of any such being as God. 

Without any attempt to prove the correctness of his 
assumptions, the unknown author of the above extract 
simply assumes a God and a beginning as things in which 
the people for wdiom he wrote already fully believed. 
Without any attempt to prove the truth of his assertion, 
he then proceeds to assert that, at the time of this assumed 
beginning, this assumed God “ created the heaven and the 
earth.” The evidences, then, whatever they may have 
been, upon which the belief in a God and a beginning 
was founded, being thus entirely anterior to the Bible, 
could not, of course, have been derived from its teachings. 
Indeed, so far from being itself founded upon the Bible, 
that belief constitutes the foundation upon which the 
Bible stands. Take away that pre-Bible belief, and the 
Bible at once becomes a worthless bundle of waste paper. 

But what evidences could the people of pre-Bible 
times have had upon which to found their belief in these 
things? As to the beginning, none of them could possibly' 
have been present to witness that event; and they did not 
claim to have any record of it made by anv one who was 
present. As to God, they could have obtained a knowl- 



180 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


edge of liis existence only through the medium of their 
natural senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and 
smelling. As to the last three of these senses, you will 
not venture to assert that they were ever exercised upon 
him. You may venture to assert, however, that he was 
seen and heard by the people of pre-Bible times. But 
you have not a particle of proof by which to establish the 
truth of this assertion. On the other hand, I have posi¬ 
tive proof, which no true Christian can reject, that your 
assertion is utterly false. In one place, John declares 
positively that “no man hath seen God at any time.” In 
another place, he just as positively declares that “ye have 
neither heard his voice at any time, nor seen his shape.” 
Several other writers of the Bible testify positively to the 
same effect. This effectually disposes of your totally 
unsupported assertion. 

Except the various phenomena of nature, therefore, the 
people of pre* Bible times could not have had anything at 
all upon which to found their belief in a God and in a be¬ 
ginning. But we have before us, to-day, those very same 
phenomena. In what respect, then, were those primitive 
men better prepared than are we now to establish the truth 
of the matters in question ? If, from certain natural phe¬ 
nomena, which they did not understand, they were able to 
prove the existence of a God and the fact of a beginning, 
why can not we, from these same phenomena, which we do 
understand, prove the same things? Did their extreme 
ignorance render them any better qualified to arrive at the 
truth in regard to these things than our knowledge renders 
us? If not, why trust to their judgment, founded upon 
ignorance, rather than to our own, founded upon knowl¬ 
edge? You very well know that, with all our knowledge, 
we utterly fail to find, in the phenomena of nature, even 
the faintest trace of either a God or a beginning. Is it en¬ 
tirely reasonable and safe, then, to take it for granted, as 
you do, that both of these things were actually found by 
the grossly ignorant and superstitious men of pre-Bible 


THE CREATION. 


181 


times ? In wliat way can extreme ignorance and supersti¬ 
tion aid men, more than can knowledge, in the discovery 
of truth ? 

The author then goes on and gives in detail an account 
of the creation, which he asserts took place “in the begin¬ 
ning ; ” and, as I have already intimated, upon this pre¬ 
tended story of creation depends the existence of what you 
call the Creator. If, as you assume, there ever was any 
such creation, then, of necessity, there must have been some 
such Creator. If, however, on th.e other hand, as I propose 
to prove, there never was any such creation, then, of neces¬ 
sity, there never could have been, and hence never was, any 
such Creator. If, as the Bible plainly teaches, the earth 
really was made, all on a sudden, and all out of nothing, 
some six thousand years ago; if it really was made three 
days before the sun; if it really was made flat and station¬ 
ary ; if it really was placed upon material foundations; if it 
really does constitute the entire universe; if the sun, the 
moon, and the stars really are mere appendages or orna¬ 
ments of the earth ; if what we call the sky really is a solid 
structure or “ firmament,” placed like a vast inverted bowl 
over the earth; if, above this firmament there really are 
vast bodies of water, which were placed there for the benefit 
of the earth, before the creation of the sun, the moon, or 
the stars; if there really are windows in this firmament; 
if, through these windows, a body of water over five miles 
deep all around the world, really did once pour down from 
the upper side of this firmament; if, to keep them from 
falling, the sun, the moon, and the stars, all at an equal 
distance from the earth, really are “ set,” or stuck like nails 
into the under side of this firmament; if these bodies really 
are a little lower down or nearer the earth than are the 
waters which are above the firmament; if all the stars really 
are capable of being shaken out of the firmament, and made 
to come rattling down, like so many figs, upon the earth; if 
the firmament itself really is capable of being rolled together 
like a scroll and taken away; if light really did exist before 


182 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tliere was anything to emit light; if there really were three 
perfect days before there was any sun to produce day; if 
all the plants really were brought forth by the earth before 
any rain had ever fallen to moisten the ground, and before 
there was any sun to light the air and warm the ground; 
if, at the same time, these very same plants that thus grew 
up out of the ground, really were all manufactured without 
growing at all, and without ever having been in the ground 
at all; if all the birds really were brought forth by the 
w aters, at the same time with the fish, and in the same man¬ 
ner ; if, at the same time, these very same birds, like so 
many bricks, really were all manufactured directly out of 
the ground, without ever having been in the water at all; 
if a serpent really did take a walk with a lady ; if he really 
did converse with her in her own language; if he really did 
out-reason her in argument; if he really did know the na¬ 
ture of God’s promises better than God knew them him¬ 
self; if he really did outwit God and spoil all his plans; 
if the first man and the first woman really were both made 
at the same time and in the same manner; if, notwith¬ 
standing this fact, they really were made at different times 
and in different manners; if the man really was the last 
thing that was made; if, at the same time, the trees, the 
birds, and the beasts really were made after he was; if a 
slice of flesh large enough to make a full-grown woman of 
Teally was stolen from the body of a sleeping man, without 
waking him or even making a sore place; if all these mon¬ 
strous absurdities, and a thousand more like them, really 
are absolutely true, then the fact of a creation and the ex¬ 
istence of a Creator may be regarded as established. But, 
in this case, which one of the world’s many gods is to have 
the very doubtful honor of having performed this mon¬ 
strously absurd creation ? Have you any proof that your 
God performed it? If you had been born to some other 
god, would you not have been just as sure that he per¬ 
formed it? 


THE CREATION. 


183 


Of necessity, the Creator must have existed before the 
beginning of the creation. But for how long a time be¬ 
fore ? If for a finite period only, then, as I showed in my 
last lecture, he himself must, of necessity, have had only 
a finite existence; and, by going back beyond that finite 
period, we must inevitably find space and duration exist¬ 
ing without any God at all, unless we assume that there 
was an older God than the Creator. If, however, on the 
other hand, the Creator had an eternal existence, as you 
teach that he had, then, as I also showed in my last lect¬ 
ure, there must, of necessity, have lain an eternal, an 
absolutely undiminishable, period between himself and any 
point that can possibly be assumed as that at which the 
work of creation was begun. It is evident, then, that he 
could never have come to be within less than this same 
absolutely infinite distance in duration beyond the creative 
point in question. It is also equally evident, therefore, 
that he never did reach that creative point at all, and that, 
consequently, he never did perform any creation at all. 

I defy any escape from these conclusions, so damaging 
to the cause of my opponents. The period in question 
could not possibly have had an end at the creative point, 
without having had a beginning somewhere in duration 
anterior to that point. A period of duration is like a rope. 
If it has an end in the one direction, it is bound to have 
an end, or, rather, a beginning in the other. It is bound 
to be just as long when measured in the one direction as it 
is when measured in the other. The period in question, 
then, could not possibly have been finite, when measured 
forward, toward the creative point, and infinite, when meas¬ 
ured backward, from that point. 

Of necessity, however, we are bound to place the Cre¬ 
ator at either a finite or an infinite distance in duration 
Beyond the point at which we place the creation. In the 
one case, however, as you plainly see, we make him, of 
necessity, a finite being, and involve the additional neces" 
sity of an infinite series of older Gods. In the other case, 


184 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


as you also plainly see, we render him, of equal necessity,, 
utterly incapable of ever reaching the creative point at all; 
and, consequently, utterly incapable of ever performing 
the creation at all. We are compelled, therefore, as you 
plainly see, either to accept a finite Creator, with an in¬ 
finite series of older Gods, or else do without any Creator, 
or any creation at all. And now which horn of this un¬ 
pleasant dilemma will you take? Take whichever you 
may, your cause is lost. 

Leaving my opponents, however, to bring their Creator 
up, in the best way they can, from the utterly unreachable 
depths of eternity to the* creative point—to the end of 
what they themselves are compelled to admit was an abso¬ 
lutely endless period, let us see what he does after they 
get him there. 

Of necessity, the creation, if it ever occurred at all, 
must have consisted either in the bringing of matter itself 
from absolute nonentity into existence, or else simply in 
the forming of individualized objects, such as worlds, 
plants, men, etc., from matter which had eternally existed. 
On the former of these two hypotheses, however, what 
have we with which to begin the work of creation ? Since 
matter, in every form, is now totally absent, and since the 
total absence of matter constitutes a perfect vacuum, we 
have, as I fully proved in my last lecture, both God and 
space reduced to one and the same infinite, motionless, and 
necessarily powerless perfect vacuum, from which nothing 
at all can ever proceed. It is a self-evident truth, that 
nothing can ever give forth anything which it does not 
itself contain; and that the total absence of a thing can 
never become the thing itself. It is self-evident, there¬ 
fore, that empty space—that a perfect vacuum, the total 
absence of all matter, such as God now is—can never give 
forth matter, and can never be itself changed into matter. 

All the matter of the universe, then, must, of neces¬ 
sity, have been eternally present in the Creator, just as it 
is present in him now. As yet, however, there was noth- 


THE CREATION. 


185 


ing at all in existence, except the Creator himself. This 
fact, I presume, my opponents will not care to deny. Of 
necessity, then, the entire material of the universe, which 
was thus eternally present in the Creator, must have con¬ 
stituted a part of himself. I have already shown, however, 
that, of necessity, he must have been himself eternally 
present in space, just as he is present in it to-day. It is 
evident, therefore, that, of equal necessity, this material 
part of himself—this entire matter of the universe—must 
also have been eternally present in space, where he was, 
just as it is present therein to-day. 

But, in what condition was all this matter as it thus 
originally existed in God and in space ? In a future course 
of lectures, I shall prove that, of necessity, it was in the 
very same condition in which it exists at the present time 
—in the form of worlds of plants, of men, etc. In order, 
however, to retain some apparent use for the assumed God 
upon whose supposed* existence their unearned incomes 
dejpend, my opponents of the priesthood, when forced to 
admit the eternity of matter, contend, as might be ex¬ 
pected, that it originally existed in a state of chaos, spread, 
like a vapor, throughout infinite space. Having assumed 
this as the original condition of matter, these holy men 
proceed to argue, in a very unctuous manner, that a 
God—the very God, too, of course, upon whom their in¬ 
comes depend—was absolutely necessary to reduce this 
matter from its chaotic condition into its present condi¬ 
tion of order and of beauty. But how much is their 
argument worth, founded, as it is, upon a pure and unwar¬ 
rantable assumption? We have not a particle of proof 
that any more matter ever existed, at any one time, in a 
state of chaos, than exists in that state to-day. 

Let us suppose, however, that all the matter of the 
universe was originally thus in a state of chaos. As I 
have already shown, it necessarily constituted a part of 
the Creator himself. It is evident, then, that when he 
reduced it from its state of chaos, into the forms of worlds, 


186 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


of plants, of men, etc., he must, of necessity, have made an 
entire change in his own constitution. By this change of 
form or condition, however, matter did not become any 
the less a part of God himself. Of necessity, it still 
remains, as before, inside of him; and, of equal necessity, 
it still remains, as before, a part of his own constitution. 
It is evident, then, that every world, ever plant, every man, 
etc., is simply an essential part of God himself. In other 
words, it is evident that nothing ever has existed, or ever 
can exist, except God himself alone. We thus find estab¬ 
lished the truth of that form of Pantheism taught by 
Spinoza, one of the greatest thinkers of the world, “that 
there is but one substance, or infinite essence, in the uni¬ 
verse, of which the so-called material and spiritual beings 
and phenomena are only modes, and that this one sub¬ 
stance is God” (Webster). 

Besides all this, since every action or motion is an 
effect, and since every effect must, of necessity, have a 
cause, what was it that caused the Creator, after an eternity 
of total inaction, to begin moving, in the work of creation, 
just when he did? You may reply that it was his own 
will that caused him thus, at that particular moment, to 
begin moving. But had he never, till that moment, pos¬ 
sessed a will? If not, how came he by one at that particular 
moment? If he had, why did he not move sooner? You 
may again reply that his will did not begin to act till that 
very moment. But can there be such a thing as a will 
that does not act? Does not the will, of necessity, consist 
entirely in action; in a peculiar action of the mind, or, 
rather, of the brain? Can will exist without action, any 
more than light or sound can exist without motion? 
Besides all this, admitting that the will is something that 
does itself act, is not its action an effect which is bound to 
Iiave a cause? What was it, then, that caused the Crea¬ 
tor’s will, after an eternity of total inaction, to begin act¬ 
ing at that particular moment? Had that cause acted 
sooner, would not the Creator’s will have been bound to 


THE CREATION. 


187 


act sooner? Wliat was it, then, that caused that cause to 
begin acting just when it did? And so of an infinite series 
of equally necessary but more remote causes. What 
caused each one of them to begin acting just when it did? 

Leaving my opponents, however, to arouse their Crea¬ 
tor to action, in the best way they can, after he has 
entirely lived out, in total inaction, an absolutely endless 
period of duration, let us see how he proceeds to work, 
after he is thus aroused. 

We now assume that all the matter of the universe is 
spread, like a motionless vapor, throughout infinite space. 
Of necessity, we also have it spread, in like manner, 
throughout the infinite extent of God himself, who, as we 
have already seen, is, of necessity, co-extensive with space, 
if he be not space itself. In order to collect this chaotic 
matter into the forms of worlds, of plants, of men, etc., 
the Creator must, of necessity, give it motion; and this he 
can do only by bringing to bear upon it what we call force, 
of which there are only two kinds: mechanical force, and 
the force of attraction. Of necessity, then, he must either 
mechanically scrape together chaotic matter, throughout 
infinite space, and throughout his own infinite extent, form 
it into worlds, plants, men, etc., by mechanical means, or 
else he must infuse into matter itself a certain force or 
property, which we call attraction, and which will cause 
the particles of matter to mutually approach one another, 
and to finally unite in such a manner as to form worlds, 
plants, men, etc. 

And now, which one of these two methods of creation, 
or, rather, of formation, shall we have the Creator employ? 
The Bible has him employ the former or mechanical 
method. This is the only method, therefore, that my 
subject really requires me to notice. This method, how¬ 
ever, involves several difficulties which are very embar¬ 
rassing to theologians. In order, therefore, if possible, to 
relieve these holy men, of the difficulties in question, I 


188 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


will also notice the other method; that by the force of 
attraction. 

Of necessity, the mechanical method requires the Crea¬ 
tor to have material hands with which to scrape together 
and to mold into form the chaotic matter upon which he 
is operating. In order to have material hands he must, of 
equal necessity, also have a material body to support these 
hands. The moment we give him such a body, however, 
we also, of necessity, give him definite limits, and thus, of 
equal necessity, render him a finite being, utterly incapa¬ 
ble, as I have already shown, of ever occupying the en¬ 
tirety of infinite space, and of working throughout it all, or 
of even passing over it, in all the ages of eternity, in one 
single direction. Besides this, we have, in the material 
body of the Creator, a quantity of matter not in a chaotic 
condition. Of necessity, therefore, some older God must 
have reduced it from a chaotic condition into its present 
form. In order to do this, however, that older God, of 
necessity, had also to have a material body. This involves 
the necessity of a still older God, also with a material 
body, and so on back through an infinite series of gods. 

Leaving my opponents, however, to furnish their Crea¬ 
tor, in the best way they can, with such a body as he must 
have, in order to act mechanically upon matter, let us see 
him at work after he is thus furnished. As we now behold 
him, he is simply a huge monster, in the shape of a man, 
without anything to stand upon, plunging about in space, 
and snatching at particles of chaotic matter just as a school¬ 
boy snatches at flakes of falling snow. No wonder that 
he needed rest after six days of such labor, especially as 
this was the first exercise of any kind that he had ever 
taken. It is a well-known fact, however, that, without fric¬ 
tion with, or resistance from, something else of a mate¬ 
rial nature, no material object, whether animate or in¬ 
animate, can possibly move, or be moved in a mechanical 
manner, in any direction. In order, therefore, that he may 
be able to move about from place to place, while perform- 


THE CREATION. 


189 


ing the work of creation, the Creator must, of necessity, 
have the aid of friction, or of resistance from some other 
material body more stable than himself. But what other 
body can there be, while all the matter of the universe is 
still in a state of chaos? And who could have formed 
such a body ? 

Besides all this, it is likewise a well-known fact that 
there can be no action, of any kind, in any direction, with¬ 
out an exactly equal amount of reaction, of the same kind, 
in the opposite direction. While the Creator, therefore, 
is acting upon chaotic matter, in any one direction, he 
must, of necessity, be at the same time reacting on some¬ 
thing else, in the opposite direction. But what is that 
something else, and who made it? Thus we see that, upon 
a fair analysis, the Bible method of creation, by mechani¬ 
cal means, becomes not only supremely ridiculous, but also 
manifestly impossible. Before accepting it, therefore, let 
us examine the other method—that by means of forces, in¬ 
fused by God into matter itself. If, upon examination, we 
find this method to be the more practicable of the two, we 
shall merely have to so change the plain teachings of the 
Bible, on the subject, as to make them harmonize with the 
necessary conditions of this newly adopted method of crea¬ 
tion. In a thousand other instances, such changes have 
been promptly made. 

This latter method of creation, however, is nothing 
more nor less than the development theory, which is now 
advocated by all infidel scientists as the only one that will 
bear the test of reason, science, and common sense. This 
is the very theory, if theory it may be called, of which all 
religionists stand in mortal fear, as the annihilator of their 
gods. The only difference between the infidel scientists 
and ourselves is that they, having all the forces in ques¬ 
tion, eternally existing in matter itself, have no possible 
use for a God; while we, simply that, in the eyes of the 
ignorant, we may seem to have a use for one, assume that 
all these forces originally existed in God alone, and that, 


190 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


by him, they were imparted to matter which originally 
possessed no such properties. To sustain this assump¬ 
tion, we have, of course, not a particle of proof. This;- 
fact, however, need not trouble us much, since we know 
that all religions are principally made up of equally un¬ 
supported assumptions. 

When, however, we come to analyze matter, we find 
that, even in its chaotic condition, it possesses certain essen¬ 
tial properties, and that, among these, are the very forces 
which, in the hope of retaining an apparent use for a God,, 
we assumed that he had imparted to matter. We thus: 
learn that all the forces*by which matter is fashioned into 
the forms of worlds, of plants, of men, etc., must, of neces¬ 
sity, have been eternally present in matter, just as they are 
present in it to-day. We also learn that, of equal neces¬ 
sity, the eternal presence, in matter, of these unceasingly 
active forces, renders it utterly impossible for the entire 
material of the universe ever to have been, all at any one 
time, in a state of chaos; or for the universe, as a whole, 
to have ever been otherwise than it now is, composed of 
an infinitude of worlds and of systems of worlds, in every 
stage of formation and of decomposition. We still further 
learn that, from their very nature, these forces, like the 
properties of strength, brittleness, etc., are utterly inca¬ 
pable of existing at all, except in connection with mat¬ 
ter. If, then, these forces ever existed at all, in the Crea¬ 
tor, they must, of necessity, have existed in the matter 
which entered into his own composition. But, as I have 
already shown, this w r as the entire matter of the universe. 
In any possible view of the case, therefore, the entire 
matter of the universe must, of necessity, have eternally 
possessed all those forces or properties which give rise to 
all the infinitude of forms in which we now find it. This 
matter, then, and these forces, having thus eternally existed 
in connection with each other, render the universe, of 
necessity, eternal, and, of course, uncreated and self-sus- 


THE CREATION. 191 

taining. This leaves us, like the Infidel scientists, without 
any possible use for a God. 

Besides all this, the Bible positively declares that the 
entire work of creation was completed within six days, 
from the beginning. This, we all know, could never have 
been accomplished by means of the forces inherent in 
matter. These forces never work so rapidly. We are 
compelled, therefore, either to abandon our creation 
entirely, or else, like the Bible, to have it promptly per¬ 
formed by mechanical means. 

I am aware that many hard-faced theologians attempt 
to evade the difficulty involved in the shortness of the 
time, said to have been occupied in the work of creation, 
by unblusliingly assuming, without a particle of proof, that 
the six days, mentioned in the Bible, were not six days at 
all, but were six thousand years, six geological epochs, 
or six long periods of some other kind. By this subter¬ 
fuge, however, these unfortunate and unscrupulous holy 
men either directly contradict some of the plainest and 
most positive assertions of the Bible, or reduce them to 
the worst kind of nonsense. Besides this, as I shall show, 
they involve themselves in difficulties far greater than is 
the one from which they thus escape. 

In the first place, the Bible positively declares that the 
six periods, mentioned in the story of the creation, were 
“six days;” and we have no more reason to believe that 
this one particular declaration is either false or figurative, 
than we have to believe the same in regard to the whole 
story. If, as used in this story, the word day may be con¬ 
strued to mean a thousand years, or a geological epoch, 
why may not the word created, as used in this same story, 
be construed to mean fizzled, or bamboozled, and the 
word God to mean the great giascutis, or the great jump¬ 
ing jingo ? So of all the other words in the story. Why 
may not each one of them be construed to mean somethin 
entirely different from that which it is usually employed 
to express, and which, as used in this story, it certainly 


192 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


does express? When once this reckless and totally un¬ 
authorized habit of changing the evident meaning of 
words is begun, where it is to end? May not the whole 
Bible be thus changed ? 

The writer declares that “in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh day.” This language claims to be a 
plain and concise description of certain events. If, then, 
those events actually did occur, just as they are here 
described, then, of necessity, the language is literally true. 
If, however, on the other hand, those events did not occur 
as here described, then, of equal necessity, the language 
is literally false. In other words, the author tells either a 
plain truth or a plain lie. His language cannot be figura¬ 
tive. We all know that, in a plain and concise statement 
of actual facts, figurative language, especially in the form 
of false names, false dates, and false numbers, would be 
just as inadmissible—just as impossible, in fact—as would 
be similar language—similar false names, false dates, and 
false numbers—in the minutes of a public meeting, in the 
records of a court of justice, in a promissory note, in a 
deed to real estate, or in a bill of goods. Figurative lan¬ 
guage is always used either to strengthen or to beautify 
the real meaning of the speaker or writer; never to con¬ 
ceal or to change that meaning. Language that is cal¬ 
culated to deceive is false, not figurative. If the language 
in question be not literally true, it certainly has deceived 
nearly all that ever read it. In this case, then, it is simply 
a lie. Among the parties deceived by this lie were the 
very companions of the writer himself. The Hebrews 
always did, and do yet, understand the language in ques¬ 
tion in its strictly literal sense. Indeed, it is only since 
the demonstrated truths of science have seemed to render 
a change in the meaning of this language necessary, that 
theologians have thought of giving it any other than a 
literal meaning. Besides this, since all the other names 
mentioned in the story of creation are used in exactly the 


THE CREATION. 


193 


same manner as is the word day, they are all bound to be 
used in a figurative sense, if it is. This, however, reduces 
the whole story to a mere fable. Let us see what the 
author himself has to say on the subject. He certainly 
ought to know what meaning he intends to express. He 
certainly ought to know, also, how to express that mean¬ 
ing in language that cannot be misunderstood. 

“And God called the light day, and the darkness he 
called night: and the evening and the morning were the 
first day.” From this, we learn that a dav of creation, 
like a day of our own time, contained an evening and a 
morning, that it consisted of light, and that it was the 
opposite of night or darkness. How can theologians have 
the face to assert that this language describes a thousand 
years, or a geological epoch? 

In Ex. xx, 9-11, we read: “ Six days shalt thou labor 
and do all thy work. . . For in six days the Lord made 

heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and 
rested the seventh day; wherefore the Lord blessed the 
Sabbath day and hallowed it.” In Ex. xxxi, 17, this is 
repeated as follows: “It [the Sabbath] is a sign between 
me and the children of Israel forever; for in six days the 
Lord made heaven and earth, and, on the seventh day, he 
rested and was refreshed.” From all of this, it is evident 
that the six days, during which God “made heaven and 
earth,” and the one day, on which “he rested and was 
refreshed,” were exactly the same kind of days as were 
the six days during which the Hebrews were required to 
labor, and the one day cn which they were required to 
rest. And will my opponents have the effrontery to con¬ 
tend that the Hebrews were required to labor during six 
thousand years, or six geological epochs, and then to rest 
during one of these same periods? If so, then, as con¬ 
strued by them, the passages, bearing upon the subject in 
question, would read as follows: “And God called the 
light a geological epoch , and the darkness he called an ungco- 
logical epoch , and the evening and the morning were the first 


194 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


geological epoch ” “Six geological epochs skalt thou labor 
and do all thy work. . . For in six geological epochs the 

Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them 
is, wherefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath geological epoch 
and hallowed it.” What an immense improvement my 
opponents thus make upon the language and the meaning 
of these passages! 

Every intelligent person knows that no serious and 
sensible passage, such as are those under consideration, 
containing figurative language, is ever rendered ridiculous 
by substituting in it the literal for the figurative language. 
Such a substitution may, indeed, diminish the strength or 
the beauty of the passage, but never can either change or 
destroy the sense. The fact, therefore, that the passages 
in question do become ridiculous, when, for the word day, 
any other term is substituted, is proof positive that this 
word, as used in these passages, is not used in a figurative 
sense. In other words, this fact proves, beyond all reason¬ 
able doubt, that the Bible certainly does teach six literal 
days as the time occupied by the Creator in the work of 
creation. In order, then, to have the creation completed 
in so short a time, we must, of necessity, reject the slow- 
acting physical forces, and have the work performed by 
the direct mechanical labor of God himself. Indeed, in 
order to account for a special creation at all, we are bound, 
in any case, to resort to miracle. We may just as well 
then, have the greatest miracle possible, by having the 
work performed in the shortest possible time. Besides 
this, “on the seventh day,” God “rested and was re¬ 
freshed.” This, he could not possibly have done, had he 
not been previously exhausted; and the fact that he was 
exhausted, and needed rest and refreshment, is proof 
positive that he, in person, had been hard at work. 

Besides all this, it is a well-established truth that the 
physical forces have no existence except in action. If, 
then, these forces existed before the creation, they must,, 
ef necessity, have acted before that event. If, however. 


THE CREATION. 


195 


they did thus act, and if the tendency of that action was 
to produce the creation, then, of necessity, this creation 
must have been produced sooner than it was. This is 
equally true, no matter at what point in the infinite past 
we place the creation. 

From all this it is evident either that the forces in ques¬ 
tion did not exist previous to the creation, or that their 
action had no tendency to produce that result. In neither 
of these cases, however, could they have possibly produced 
our special creation. Of necessity, the creation must have 
begun to result the very moment that the cause which pro¬ 
duced it began to act. Whatever that cause may have 
been, therefore, it could not have been in operation until 
the very moment in which the creation was begun. Be¬ 
sides this, it is a well-known fact that the physical forces 
have never finished all their -work, and ceased to act; and 
that they have never needed to rest and be refreshed. It is 
also a well-known fact that man was never made in the image 
of any one of the physical forces; that these forces never 
made a full-grown man in one day; that they never made 
a full-grown man of mud, and then breathed life into him 
afterwards; that they never instantly made a full-grown 
woman of a bone ; that they never made the earth flat and 
stationary; that they never made the sky solid, and stuck 
the sun, the moon, and the stars into the under side of it 
to keep them from falling; and that they never carried on 
a conversation with one another in regard to their work. 
The Bible, therefore, wdiich declares that all these things 
were done, undeniably means to teach that they were all 
done by the direct personal power of God himself. 

Let us, however, for a moment, suppose that the six 
days of creation were, in reality, six geological epochs. 
Then, according to the teachings of geology, we must give 
to each of these epochs several hundreds of thousands, if 
not several millions, of years. In thus granting these im¬ 
mense epochs, we do, indeed, give the Creator an abun¬ 
dance of time in which to perform the creation by means 


196 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


of tlie physical forces, which we assume that he infused 
into matter for that express purpose. We find ourselves, 
however, totally unable to conceive how these forces, which, 
as I have already shown, are essential properties of matter, 
and not properties at all of anything else, could ever have 
been entirely absent from matter, and present in God, who, 
as all theologians teach, is a pure spirit, and who, conse¬ 
quently, cannot possess any of the properties of matter. 
We find it much easier to conceive that these forces have 
eternally existed in matter, of which they are essential 
properties. As we have already seen, however, to have 
them eternally present in matter, leaves us no use at all for 
a God. On the hypothesis now under discussion, the only 
use we have for a God is to impart the forces or properties 
in question to matter which, we assume, had previously 
existed without any properties at all. 

Besides all these things, we now know that, from their 
very nature, the forces in question are, of necessity, uni¬ 
versal in their action; and that, consequently, they could 
not have been in operation on the earth, during three en¬ 
tire geological epochs, before they came into operation in 
the sun, the moon, or any other portion of the material 
universe. Indeed, we know that their operation here, as 
we behold it, depends upon their co-operation in all the 
balance of the matter of the universe. Besides this, we 
know that these forces, with their uniform action, could 
never have been three times as long in forming the earth 
alone, as they were in forming all the other bodies of the 
universe. We know, too, that they never could have formed 
the earth first, and then, as a mere appendage, have fitted 
all the balance of the universe to it afterwards. We know 
still further, that they never could, during three geological 
epochs, have produced perfect day, with evening and morn¬ 
ing, without any sun, moon, stars, or other source of light. 
Finally, we know that they never could have at last made 
the sun merely to divide the already-existing day from the 
already-existing night. 


THE CREATION - . 


197 


From the very beginning, the Bible has, upon the 
earth, an abundance of water; and has God devote the en¬ 
tire secondary geological epoch to the totally unnecessary 
work of placing an equal abundance above the earth, 
on the upper side of a solid structure, called the firmament, 
into the under side of which, and consequently below 
this body of w T ater, he long afterwards stuck the sun, the 
moon, and the stars, to keep them from falling. Notwith¬ 
standing this great abundance of water, however, so con¬ 
veniently situated right over the earth, and with windows in 
the firmament, through which, at any moment, it might 
have been made to fall, the Bible does not have a drop of 
water fall upon the earth during the almost countless ages 
of the first three geological epochs. That must have been 
quite a long dry spell; or, rather, it would have been if 
there had been any sun to dry the ground. It is well, per¬ 
haps, that there was no sun. But, without the agency of 
the sun, or some other source of heat, how were those vast 
bodies of water elevated to the upper side of the firma¬ 
ment, to their position above the places in which, to keep 
them from falling, the sun, the moon, and the stars were 
set or stuck, in the quaternary epoch, untold ages after¬ 
wards. We have now given God millions of years in which 
to perform all his works by means of the physical forces, 
and we are now supposing him to perform them by these 
means alone. In the case of this wonderful hydraulic 
achievement, therefore, it will not do to have him resort to 
the miraculous interposition of his own direct personal 
power. How, then, were those vast bodies of w r ater ele¬ 
vated to their position above the stars ? 

Besides all this, the Bible declares that God made 
“ every plant of the field before it w r as in the 'earth, and 
every herb of the field before it grew” If these plants 
and herbs had been produced in the ordinary w^ay, by 
means of the physical forces, would they not have had to 
be in the earth , and would they not also have had to grow? 
Would they not also have required both rain and sun , 


198 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


neither of which had yet been created? Do not all these 
things, then, like the manufacture of a full-sized man 
directly from a pile of dirt,, and of a full-sized woman 
directly from a small bone, prove, beyond all possible dis¬ 
pute, that God w r as performing the work of creation by 
direct manual labor, and not by means of the physical 
forces ? 

We thus see that, instead of having gained anything 
by changing the simple days of creation into geological 
epochs, our hard-faced theologians have seriously injured 
their own cause. By resorting to this change at all, they 
themselves condemn the ‘literal day theory as something 
that cannot possibly bear the test of reason, science, and 
common sense. If they could still defend this theory, 
they would certainly do so, as did the whole Christian 
Church for fifteen centuries. By means of the change, 
however, which they feel themselves forced to make, in the 
plain reading and the evident meaning of the passages in 
question, they greatly increase the absurdity of the whole 
story. This they do by making the earth stand motion¬ 
less, rainless, moonless, sunless, starless—the only body 
in the universe—and yet blessed with day and night, and 
clothed with verdure, for countless ages, instead of for 
only three days. And now, having fully demonstrated that 
the Bible certainly means to teach a mechanical creation, 
performed directly “ by the hand of God,” within the space 
of six literal days, I will proceed to analyze the creation 
as thus described. 

In the first place, I wish to call your attention to the 
fact that the Bible contains two entirely different accounts 
of the creation. The one of these accounts occupies the 
entire first chapter, and the first three verses of the second 
chapter of Genesis. The other begins at the fourth verse 
and occupies the balance of the second chapter. Between 
these two accounts, which were evidently written at differ¬ 
ent times and by different authors, there are several grave 


THE CREATION. 199 

discrepancies, to some of which I will now briefly call 
your attention. 

The former of these two accounts has the creation 
occupy six days; has the plants grow, just as they grow 
now; has the plants, herbs, trees, etc., all made at the 
same time; has the fowls all brought forth by the waters, 
just as were the fish; and has the man and the woman 
both made at the same time, in the same manner, and at 
the very close of the creation. The latter account has the 
creation occupy only one day; has every form of vegetation 
manufactured, and not produced by growth; has the plants 
and herbs made at one time, and the trees at another; has 
the fowls, like so many bricks, all manufactured directly 
“ out of the groundhas the man made before the trees, 
the birds, and the beasts; and has the woman made long 
after the man, and in a very different manner. Can the 
two accounts both be true? 

I have already noticed the first verse of the Bible, in 
which a God and a beginning are assumed and a creation 
is asserted. We next read that “ the earth was without 
form and void.” Since the earth was then, as it is now, a 
material body sufficiently substantial to sustain the waters 
of the great deep, it could not have been thus “ without 
form and void.” This description, therefore, is evidently 
incorrect. 

We next read that God said, “ Let there be light;” and 
that, as a direct result of his having said this, “ there was 
light.” But who knows that he ever said this? Who was 
present on that occasion to hear his words, and to record 
them? To whom did he speak these words, in what lan¬ 
guage, and for what purpose ? If he was all alone, could 
the speaking of these words have helped him any in his 
works ? Could there have been any power in these words, 
when he himself possessed all the power there was? Can 
it be that, like a common juggler, he was merely repeating 
utterly useless mummeries? If so, was he not acting very 
foolishly, seeing there was no one present to be either 


200 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


amused or deceived by liis mummeries? His words could 
not possibly liave been of any service to himself. If, then, 
they were really of any use at all, there must, of neces¬ 
sity, have been some other person or persons present to 
hear them, and to act upon them. This is the only rational 
conclusion to which we can possiby arrive. Indeed, the 
first clause of the passage in question is a command to 
some one to produce light. The second clause is a decla¬ 
ration that the command was promptly executed. Who, 
then, was it that received and executed that command ? If 
the whole story—if the whole Bible, in fact—be not a 
mere mass of monstrous absurdities, there must, of neces¬ 
sity, have been a plurality of Gods present on that occa¬ 
sion. Indeed, the Hebrew Eloliim, which is here translated 
God, is in the plural number, and signifies, not a single 
God, but a deific corporation or congress, c.onsisting of 
several Gods. The correctness of this view is fully estab¬ 
lished by a great number of such passages as the follow¬ 
ing: “.And God said, Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness“ And the Lord God said, Behold, the man 
is become as one of us , to know good and evil,” etc. Of 
these Gods—these members of the Eloliim-^-there were at 
least three, that number having afterwards appeared to 
Abrah&m, and dined with him, all at one time, and all 
as entirely distinct persons. Modern trinitarians, how¬ 
ever, combine these three distinct persons into one mon¬ 
strous God with three heads, and have the language in 
question spoken by one of these heads to the other two. 
This triple-headed monster seems to be simply a slightly 
distorted copy of the grand old Trimurti, or Trinitv of Hin¬ 
doo Mythology, in which Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the 
Preserver, and Siva the Destroyer are thus united. 

We next read, “And God saw the light that it was 
good.” From this remark, we learn that God had 
never before seen light. Indeed, how could he have 
ever before seen it, when it had never before had any 
existence? So of everything else. Since there had 


THE CREATION. 


201 


never before been anything at all to see* it is evident 
that, of necessity, he had never before seen anything at 
all. And this is equally true of all his other senses. 
Since there had never before been anything at all to 
hear, to feel, to taste, or to smell, it is evident that, of 
necessity, he had never before heard, felt, tasted, or 
smelled anything at all. So also of his thought. Since 
thought necessarily requires an object, and since there 
had never before been anything at all to think of, it is evi¬ 
dent that, of necessity, he had never before thought of 
anything at all. In short, it is evident that, of necessity, 
he had spent an absolute eternity without exercising any 
of the attributes of a conscious being. It is no wonder, 
then, that, on this occasion, he so promptly and so incor¬ 
rectly pronounced “ very good ” all the lice, the fleas, the 
bed-bugs, the mosquitoes, the serpents, the devils, etc., 
that met his view. The only wonder is that he made so 
few mistakes as he did. But who designed his faculties of 
seeing, hearing, thinking, etc., and so exactly adapted 
them to the yet uncreated—to the yet unthought-of objects 
upon which he was finally to exercise them ? 

“ And God divided the light from the darkness.” From 
this it would seem that light and darkness had previously 
been united, or sadly intermingled with each other. We 
now know, however, that darkness is merely the absence 
of light. We also know that nothing can be united or in¬ 
termingled with its own absence. .Where light, then, is 
present, its absence or darkness cannot possibly be; and 
vice versa. Since, from their very nature, they must, of 
necessity, have always been separate, how could God have 
“divided the light from the darkness?” As reasonably 
might it be said that sound and silence had once been 
united, and that God had divided them. So of any other 
pair of essential opposites. 

We now know that light moves, in straight lines, with 
inconceivable velocity, and that it cannot possibly exist* 
even for an instant, except while thus in motion. Indeed* 


202 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


we now know that light is nothing but motion of a peculiar 
kind, in what, for the want of a better term, we call ether. 
Destroy the motion, and you annihilate the light. The 
ancient pagans, however, of whom the unknown author of 
Genesis was evidently one, supposed that light and dark¬ 
ness were two very rare substances, or vaporous bodies, of 
different colors, which might exist either in motion or at 
rest. They also supposed that these two substances could 
exist either separate or in union with each other. Hav¬ 
ing, for some reason unknown to us, assumed that light and 
darkness originally existed in a state of chaos, sadly inter¬ 
mingled with each other, those pagans were compelled to 
assume, further, that God" who, with them, stood for any 
and for every force, power, or cause which they could not 
understand, had divided them into two distinct masses or 
clouds, the one of which then constituted day, the other, 
night. You will notice that, by exactly canceling each 
other, these two assumptions leave us with light and dark¬ 
ness separate, just as they would have been had there 
been no assumption at all. Indeed, this is equally true of 
the entire universe. By first assuming that all the matter 
of the universe was once in a state of chaos, and then as¬ 
suming a God to reduce this state of chaos to one of order, 
we have the universe all in a state of order, just as we 
would have had it if neither one of these assumptions had 
ever been made. 

Those pagans supposed, further, that the two unlike 
masses or clouds in question, were entirely independent of 
the sun, or of any other material body. From this, their 
standpoint of gross ignorance, therefore, they could see 
nothing absurd in having day and night make three or four 
trips by themselves, around the earth, or rather across 
her face, before there was any sun, or any other source of 
light. Until recently, this was also the doctrine of the en¬ 
tire Christian Church. It is still the doctrine of the greater 
portion of that Church. Indeed, I cannot understand how 
any true Christian can reject a doctrine so plainly taught 


THE CREATION. 


203 


in tlie Bible. In the Douay, or Catholic Bible, we find a 
note on the passage in question, which says : “ God created 
on the first day light, which being moved from east to 
west, by its rising and setting, made morning and evening.” 

As I have already remarked, the Bible does not have 
the sun created to produce day, but simply to divide the 
already-existing day from the already-existing night. From 
this it would seem that day and night, the white cloud and 
the black one in question, were inclined to again become 
intermixed with each other, as they had been before God 
divided them. To prevent them, therefore, from thus flow¬ 
ing together and intermixing, God found it necessary to 
place an impassable barrier between them. Hence the 
making of the sun, and the placing of it on the dividing 
line between day and night, or, in other words, between 
the white cloud in question, and the black one. We now 
know, however, that the sun is the only source or cause of 
day; and that, consequently, there never could have been, 
and never were, as the Bible teaches, three perfect days 
before there was any sun to produce day. We know that, 
from its very nature, light cannot possibly exist without a 
constant source or cause. It is evident, therefore, that it 
never did thus exist, without a source, as the Bible says it 
did, and that it never did pass, as the Bible also says it did, 
like a mass of white vapor, three or four times around the 
earth, or across her face. As reasonably might we assume 
that sound and silence, like two dissimilar but invisible 
bodies, had thus passed around or across the earth, before 
the creation of anything capable of producing sound. 

Besides all these things, we know that, without the 
sun, the earth could never, for three whole geological 
epochs, or even for three whole days, have retained her 
place in her orbit, or performed any of her other planetary 
functions. Several theologians have admitted this fact, 
and have taught that, from the beginning, the sun w'as, of 
necessity, present in the heavens, but that, until the fourth 
day, or the quaternary geological epoch, the weather was 


204 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


so foggy that liis presence there was not discovered. So 
of all the other heavenly bodies. These theologians con¬ 
tend that they were merely discovered, not made, as the 
Bible says they were, on the fourth day. This interpreta¬ 
tion, however, as you plainly see, simply makes the story, 
as told in the Bible, a lie. The great commentator, Dr. 
Clarke, sees and freely admits the insurmountable diffi¬ 
culties involved in this matter. He is compelled to resort 
to the assumption of the miraculous interposition of God’s 
direct personal power to keep the earth in order until the 
completion of the solar system. Dr. Clarke also admits, 
that there could not have been, and consequently were not,, 
three or any other number of perfect days before there 1 
was any sun to produce day. The learned Doctor, there¬ 
fore, is compelled to assume that, as told in the Bible, the 
story is a lie. Instead, however, of assuming, as do many 
other theologians whom I have noticed, that the word day, 
as used in this story, means a geological epoch, the Doctor 
makes the rather novel assumption that it means caloric or 
latent heat. This is quite a different construction from that 
put upon the same word by our other theological assump- 
tionists. To all this, I will simply say that if the author 
of Genesis had meant caloric, he would doubtless have 
used this word, or an equivalent, and not the word light or 
day, to express that meaning. It is not at all likely, how¬ 
ever, that he had the slightest idea of the existence of any 
such thing as caloric or latent heat. And even if he meant 
caloric, how could it have consisted of light; how could it, 
have been the opposite of darkness; how could it have pro¬ 
duced three perfect days, with evenings and mornings V 
If Dr. Clarke is correct, then we should read: “And’. 
God said, let there be caloric; and there w^as caloric . And 
God divided the caloric from the darkness. And the caloric 
he called caloric, and the darkness he called night; and 
the evening and the morning were the first caloric .” “ Six 

calorics shalt thou labor and do all thy work. . . . For 

in six calorics the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea/* 


THE CREATION. 


205 


etc. To what monstrous absurdities are even the most 
learned theologians driven in their desperate attempts to 
prop up, as true history, this supremely ridiculous story of 
a special creation! 

We next read: “ And God said, let there be a firmament 
in the midst of the waters; and let it divide the waters 
from the waters. And God made the firmament, and 
divided the waters which were under the firmament from 
the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 
And God called the firmament heaven.” Having, to some 
extent, already noticed this firmament, I will now give it 
only a very brief notice. The word firmament, with very Ut¬ 
ile change of form, and no change at all of meaning, comes 
from the Latin jirmamentum , which means a solid structure 
used as a foundation, a support, etc.—something designed 
to render firm whatever rests upon it. The corresponding 
Hebrew word, rakici, has the same meaning combined with 
the idea of expansion. Every person, well posted in Latin 
and in Hebrew, knows that I am correct in these state¬ 
ments ; and any of you may satisfy yourselves of the same 
fact by consulting your own Bible Dictionaries. 

Until about three hundred years ago, the belief was 
almost universal, and especially so in the Christian 
Church, that the sky was a solid concavo-convex structure, 
placed, like a vast inverted bowl, over the earth, or, like a 
hollow sphere, all around it. In various languages, and 
by various authors, but always with the same meaning, 
this structure was called the rakia, the firmamentum, the 
crystalline, etc. The belief was also equally general, that, 
to keep them from falling, the sun, the moon, and the stars, 
all necessarily at an equal distance from the earth, were 
stuck like nails into the under or concave surface of this 
structure, while, firmly founded on its upper or convex 
surface, were the thrones and the dwelling-places of the 
gods. In addition to these gods, thrones, and dwelling- 
places, there were also believed to be, on the upper side 
of this firmament, and, of course, a little above the sun, 


206 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


the moon, and the stars, which were on the under side,, 
vast bodies of water which, at the pleasure of the gods,, 
could be made to pour down upon the earth, through win¬ 
dows or openings made in the firmament for that purpose. 
"When reduced to a systematic form, these various ideas, 
all of which are clearly taught in the Bible, constituted 
substantially what was known as the Ptolemaic or Geo¬ 
centric System of Astronomy. To this system, now dem¬ 
onstrated to be utterly false, the Papal seal of infallibility 
was once given, thus rendering a belief in it binding upon 
the consciences of all men, and absolutely necessary to 
salvation. Whether this seal has ever been removed or 
not, I am not able to say. The seal, however, makes no 
difference. As I have already said, the Bible clearly 
teaches all the doctrines of this system, and thus renders 
a belief in them binding upon every true Christian, and 
absolutely necessary to his salvation. 

Claiming to write from the Hebrew Scriptures, Jose¬ 
phus says that God placed a firmament or “ crystalline ” 
around the earth, “ and put it together in a manner agree¬ 
able to the earth, and fitted it for giving moisture and rain, 
and for affording the advantage of dews.” Mark the 
expression “put it together” etc. Such language could 
have been used only in speaking of the several parts of a 
material structure. Upon this idea of a solid sky or firma¬ 
ment, placed over a flat and stationary earth, is founded 
the language which I have quoted from the Bible. We 
now know, however, that no such solid sky or firmament, 
ever existed. We cannot, therefore, help knowing also 
that the Bible story of creation, which makes this imagi¬ 
nary firmament absolutely necessary to the structure of the 
universe, is a baseless, if not a pernicious, fabrication. 

For want of time, I shall be obliged to omit any fur¬ 
ther notice of the creation of the plants, the birds, the 
beasts, etc., and devote the balance of this lecture to a dis¬ 
cussion of the creation of man. 

fc, 'And God said, Let us make man in our image, after 


THE CREATION. 


207 


our likeness . . . So God created man in his own im¬ 

age, m the image of God created he him; male and female 
created he them” (Gen. i, 26, 27). “And the Lord God 
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into 
his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living 
soul ’ (Gen. ii, 7). In the former of these two passages, 
we again have proof that a plurality of persons, in their 
corporate or united capacity, called God, were engaged in 
the creation. We must either admit this to be a fact, or 
else charge God with having, on that occasion, like a com¬ 
mon juggler, frequently repeated, entirely to himself, cer¬ 
tain meaningless mummeries, and then with having, after¬ 
wards, published to the world this extremely silly pro¬ 
ceeding. In explanation of the language here used, the 
Douay Bible contains a note which says: “ God speaketh 
here in the plural number to insinuate the plurality of 
persons in the Deity.” This note, which is endorsed by a 
large majority of the Christians of the world, substantially 
admits all that I claim : that God or Deity, like the cor¬ 
responding Hebrew Elohim, is the name, not of one per¬ 
son, but of a corporation or congress composed of at least 
three persons. 

These several members of the Deity are represented in 
the Bible as being entirely distinct individuals, who had 
to make their thoughts known to one another, by means 
of words, as in the case before us, and who sometimes 
separated and went on entirely different journeys, as we 
learn from the eighteenth chapter of Genesis. From the 
fact that man was made in the image of each one of these 
three persons, we learn that they were all of the same 
form, and all of the human form. Had they been of dif¬ 
ferent forms, man evidently could have been made in the 
image of only one of them; and, had they been of any 
other than the human form, man, in receiving the form he 
did, would evidently not hate been made in their image at 
all. Besides this, they all three appeared to Abraham, 
and dined with him in the form of men. 


208 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


I am aware that, in order to avoid a too plain adoption 
of the favorite old pagan doctrine of polytheism, our more 
modern trinitarians have united these three entirely dis¬ 
tinct persons, whom they call the Father, the Son, and the 
Holy Ghost, into one triple monster called the Trinity. 
As I have already said, this monstrosity seems to have 
been copied from the mythology of the Hindoos. “ The 
Father” represents Brahma the Creator; the “Son” 
represents Vishnu the Preserver or Savior; and the “Holy 
Ghost” represents Siva, not in his character of Destroyer, 
it is true, but in his more amiable character of Child 
Begetter. To each of the three heads of this monster, our 
trinitarians, in imitation of the Hindoos, grant the power 
of separate thought, and separate speech, and have the 
language in question spoken by one of these heads, to the 
other two. If, however, this view be correct, how does it 
happen that man, who is declared to have been made in 
the image of this monster, is not a triple-lieaded monster 
also? On this hypothesis, is not every man undeniably 
entitled to three heads? How does it happen, then, that 
men have been put off with only one head each, and that, 
in many cases, a very small one almost entirely destitute 
of brains. I would advise every man, who really believes 
this three-headed-monster doctrine, to demand the other 
two heads, to which he is so clearly entitled, and of which 
he is so greatly in need. 

I am also aware that theologians of the present day 
unblushingly assume that it was something which they 
call mans soul, and not man himself, that was created in 
the image of God. The Bible, however, which they thus 
directly contradict, certainly has the first human body, 
without any soul at all, made in the image of God, and 
has this same soulless body constitute the entire man. 
This, I will now prove. 

In the first place, then, the Bible declares that “God 
created man in liis own image.” It also declares that 
“the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” 


THE CREATION. 


209 


Prom this, it is evident that “man” and the “image of 
God” are one and the same thing, and that, of necessity, 
they are composed of the very same “dust of the ground.” 
It was this material body, then, this “ dust of the ground,” 
and not an immaterial, invisible, impalpable, incompre¬ 
hensible something called a soul, that was made in the 
“image of God.” Of necessity, this “dust of the ground” 
became the “image of God,” the very moment it became 
“man;” and it became both the very moment it received 
the human form and organization. As yet, it had neither 
life nor soul. Nevertheless, it was a perfect man, and 
a perfect “ image of God. 1 ’ Physical shape and organiza¬ 
tion, and these alone, made it both. Neither life nor soul, 
therefore, was necessary to constitute this creature either 
a “man” or an “image of God,” and neither one of them 
was used in making him such. From all this, it is evident 
that God himself must have possessed just such a body as 
he gave to man. Man’s body could not have been an 
image of anything but a similar body. As I have already 
shown, however, the moment we give God a body, or 
shape of any kind, we make him a finite being utterly 
incapable of ever having created the universe. I thus 
again prove the story of the creation to be, at best, a mere 
fable. 

But how do I know that, when first completed “in the 
image of God,” man had neither life nor soul? How do I 
know that he was “dust of the.ground” and nothing else? 
Bead again the latter of the two passages which I quoted, 
and you will learn how I know these facts. “And the 
Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and 
breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” From this 
it is evident that this “dust of the ground” became a man, 
and was spoken of as such, the moment it received the 
form and the organization that constitute man. As yet, 
however, he was evidently a lifeless man, and there was 
no such thing in existence as “ a living soul.” It was not 
until after he was complete, both as a man and as “the 


210 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


image of God,” that he received “the breath of life, . . . 

and became a living soul.” Neither life nor soul, then, 
could possibly have been present in man, when he first 
became such, and when he first became “the image of 
God.” 

Whether man ever came to possess a soul at all or not, 
is a question which, on the present occasion, I shall not 
attempt to determine. Indeed, it is a question with which 
this discussion has very little to do. It is certain, how¬ 
ever, that no soul was given to man at the time of his crea¬ 
tion; and, if any such thing was ever given to him after¬ 
wards, we have no account of that event. Indeed, outside 
of the evidences given by Spiritualism—and these very few 
of you will accept—we have not a particle of proof that any 
such thing as a soul ever had a real existence. Your priests 
would fain have you believe that, at the time of which I 
am speaking, God breathed an immortal soul into the 
man’s nostrils. As the more intelligent of these priests 
all well know, however, the Bible does not teach any such 
doctrine. It does not have him, on that, or on any other 
occasion breathe anything into man’s nostrils except 
common air or breath; and this it has him do simply to 
start the man to breathing, and, consequently, to living. 
It represents God as starting this man to breathing and to 
living, just as we sometimes re-start a drowned man to 
breathing and to living, by forcing breath into his nostrils. 
The machinery of life being all perfect in the man, this 
was the most natural way of setting that machinery in 
motion. The Bible does not represent God as having 
made man immortal at all. On the contrary, it represents 
him as taking special pains to prevent man from living 
forever. This it has him do by preventing man from par¬ 
taking of the tree of life which, if eaten by man, would, 
indeed, have enabled him to “live forever.” In this case y 
however, man’s immortality would have been of his body y 
of that which was made “in the image of God,” and not of 
any such thing as a soul. Indeed, until the later part of 


THE CREATION. 


211 


their career as a nation, after they had adopted many of 
the opinions of the Babylonians and other gentile nations, 
the Hebrews themselves, the makers of the Bible, seemed 
to have no idea of any future state of existence. All their 
hopes, all their fears, all their rewards, and all their 
punishments had reference to this life alone. 

So far from representing a soul as an invisible and 
intangible something that can be breathed either into 
a man or out of him, the Bible represents it as being 
nothing more nor less than the man himself, the material 
body which was formed “of the dust of the ground.” In 
other words, it makes the noun, soul, a synonym of the 
noun man, and uses it simply to avoid the immediate 
repetition of this latter noun. After representing God as 
starting man to breathing, it says that, in consequence of 
the starting of his machinery of life in this way, “man 
became a living soul.” In place of the word soul, in the 
text, repeat the synonymous word man, and you have the 
whole meaning clearly expressed: “And the Lord God 
formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed inta 
his nostrils the breath of life; and man [hitherto without 
life, by being thus started to breathing] became a living 
man.” This tells it all. While the party in question was 
a lifeless man, he was, of necessity, also a lifeless soul. 
When he became a living man, he also, of necessity, 
“became a living soul.” That the word soul, as used here, 
and in other parts of the Old Testament, does simply 
mean man or person, and that it is used with reference 
to the body alone, is rendered still more clear by a vast 
number of such passages as the following: “And Joshua 
at that time turned back, and took Hazor, and smote the 
king thereof with the sword. . . . And they smote all 

the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, 
utterly destroying them: there was not any left to breathe” 
(Josh, xi, 10, 11). Could such immaterial and immortal 
souls as my opponents now profess to deal in, have been 
thus utterly destroyed “with the edge of the sword?’* 


212 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


‘‘And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war, 
which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both 
of the persons, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of 
the sheep ” (Num. xxxi, 28). From this, we learn that the 
beeves, the asses, and the sheep were as much souls, or as 
much possessed of souls, as were the persons. But what 
were the souls of which this levy was to consist? Were 
they the material bodies of the beeves, the asses, etc., or were 
they the invisible, and immaterial spirits of these creatures ? 
From all this, it is evident that, to find any other soul 
than the corporeal man himself—any other soul than that 
which was formed “of the dust of the ground”—we must 
search elsewhere than in this story. Indeed, we must 
search elsewhere than in the entire writings of the Old 
Testament. 

Before he was started -to breathing, the man in ques¬ 
tion was like a new watch, which is perfect in all its parts, 
and in all its capacities, but which has not been set to run¬ 
ning. After he was started to breathing, he was like the 
same watch after it is set to running. Stop the motion of 
the machinery in the running watch, and it becomes pre¬ 
cisely what it was before it was set to running. So stop 
the motion of the machinery in the living man, and he be¬ 
comes exactly what he was before that machinery was put 
in motion. As no soul, or anything else, goes into a watch, 
when its machinery is put in motion, or goes out of it when 
that motion ceases, so no soul, or anything else, necessarily 
•goes into a man when his machinery is put in motion, or 
goes out of him when that motion ceases. As the only 
necessary difference between the watch when running or 
living, and when stopped or dead, consists solely in the 
difference of condition, as to motion or rest, of its ma¬ 
chinery ; so the only necessary difference between the man, 
when running or living, and when stopped or dead, con¬ 
sists solely in the difference, as to motion or rest, of the 
condition of his machinery. In other words, living con- 


THE CREATION. 


213 

sists solely in the motion of the machinery of life; dying, 
solely in the cessation of that motion. 

Having thus fully proved the story of the creation to 
be, at best, only an absurd pagan fable, I now conclude by 
challenging any champion of that story, who is in goocl 
standing among his own sect, to meet me, and discuss the 
subject in fair public debate. 


LECTURE SEVENTH. 

THE CREATION.—(CONCLUDED.) 

In my last two lectures, I charged the Bible with teach¬ 
ing that the earth is the principal body in the universe; 
that it is flat and stationary ; that the sky is a solid struc¬ 
ture or firmament, placed, like a vast inverted bowl, over 
the earth; that, to keep them from falling, the sun, the 
moon, and the stars, all necessarily at an equal distance 
from the earth, are stuck, like nails, into the under side of 
this firmament; and many other doctrines, which mark it, 
not as the word of an all-wise God, but as the work of 
men too ignorant, or too regardless of truth, to be ranked 
among respectable writers. Most of these charges, I j)roved, 
at the time that I made them. Knowing, however, that 
many of our champions of the Bible unblushingly deny 
that it teaches these doctrines, I will devote a portion of 
this lecture to still further proofs that it certainly does 
teach them. 

Forgetting sixteen hundred years of their own dark 
history ; forgetting how often they themselves have proved 
that the Bible certainly does clearly teach these doctrines; 
forgetting how many brave men they have burnt for re¬ 
jecting these doctrines ; these hard-faced champions of the 
Bible are now wont to quote one obscure passage to prove 
that the Bible teaches the true system of the universe—an 
earth revolving in space, etc. This passage is found in 



214 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Job xxvi, 7, and reads as follows : “He stretcheth out the 
north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon 
nothing.” As drowning men catch at straws, so do these 
champions of the Bible, in the desperation to which the 
truths of science have driven them, catch at this extremely 
vague passage, which is the only one, in the whole Bible, 
that can possibly be so tortured as to make it indicate, on 
the part of its writer, even the faintest idea of the true 
system of the universe. 

The great Commentator, Dr. Clarke, however, one of 
the ablest defenders the Bible ever had, so far from making 
this passage teach the true system of the universe, makes 
it, like all the other passages of the Bible, that bear upon 
the subject at all, teach a flat and stationary earth. He 
says: “ . . . What is here stated may refer to the 

opinion that the earth was a vast extended plain, and the 
heavens poised upon it, resting upon this plain, all round 
the horizon. Of the south the inhabitants of Idumea knew 
nothing; nor could they have any notion of the inhabitants 
in that hemisphere. [Hangeth the earth upon nothing.] 
The Chaldee says: He layetli the earth upon the waters, 
nothing sustaining it.” 

Could this passage, with any appearance of fairness, 
have been so construed as to make it refer to the true sys¬ 
tem of the universe, would not Clarke have been sure to so 
construe it? Was he not, on all occasions, eager to defend 
the Bible, as far as possible, from the grave charge of 
teaching the many false doctrines which I have enumer¬ 
ated? He was a man of too much intelligence, however, to 
attempt any such construction. He finds that hanging 
“the earth upon nothing,” means simply spreading it out 
flat upon the waters. Among the ancients, this idea was a 
very common and a very natural one. To them, the shores 
or edges of the land appeared like the edges of a vast raft, 
or floating garden, partially sunk in the water, while the 
springs that gushed from the ground, in various places, ap¬ 
peared to be coming up from the “ great deep,” upon which 


THE CREATION. 


215 


k 

the earth was supposed to rest. A great portion of the 
waters of the deluge was supposed to have gushed up from 
this “ great deep,” through openings in the earth, made for 
that purpose. In Gen. vii, 11, we read : “ . . . The same 
day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up: 

. . . ” In Gen. viii, 2, we also read: “ The fountains of 

the deep, and the windows of heaven were stopped. . 
These “ fountains of the great deep,” w r hich were thus 
“broken up” atone time and “stopped” at another, could 
have been nothing else than vast openings in the ground, 
through which the waters gushed up from the mighty 
floods upon which the earth, like an immense floating gar¬ 
den, was supposed to rest. 

Thus is turned against themselves the only passage in 
the wdiole Bible that theologians have ever had the effront¬ 
ery to claim as teaching, even by implication, the true sys¬ 
tem of the universe. Indeed, when we come to prop¬ 
erly analyze this passage, w^e find that its very language is 
such as to entirely exclude the idea of its ever having been 
used with reference to a globe revolving in space. “ He 
stretcheth out the north over the empty place.” Could 
Job have regarded the earth as a globe, when he believed 
that its northern part had been thus “stretched out?” 
And could he have regarded it as a body revolving in 
space, when he believed that its northern part, unlike the 
balance of it, rested, in a special manner, over what he calls 
“the empty place?” Would he not have perceived that 
the northern part of a revolving body could never have re¬ 
mained thus specially “stretched out over a stationary 
empty place ? ” Does any portion of this language apply to 
the earth as it now exists ? Do w r e not now know that, so far 
from being thus “ stretched out,” the northern part of the 
earth is depressed or drawm in? And do we not also know 
that this northern part no more rests over “the empty 
place” than does any other part? 

Admitting, however, that this passage does indicate 
something like a correct idea of the true system of the 


216 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


universe, wliat do my opponents gain by the. admission ? 
Of necessity, the language is either literal or figurative. If 
it be literal , then, in teaching the true system of the uni¬ 
verse, it undeniably stands as a direct contradiction to the 
many other passages, which, as I shall soon show, cer¬ 
tainly do teach a flat and stationary earth, a solid sky or 
firmament, etc. In thus contradicting these other pas¬ 
sages, therefore, this passage tends to destroy the credi¬ 
bility of the Bible, as a whole, and thus injures the cause 
of my opponents. If, however, the language be figurative, 
then, of course, it is not to be understood that the author 
regarded as real that which he expressed by it. It is a 
well-known fact that no writer or speaker intending to use 
figurative language, in the description of an object, ever 
thinks of such a thing as'describing that object by what 
he understands to be its literal or real characteristics. In¬ 
deed, a literal or real description cannot be figurative. It 
is evident, then, that if Job intended to use figurative lan¬ 
guage, when he described the universe by what we now 
know to be its true characteristics, he certainly condemned 
these characteristics as being, in his opinion, utterly un¬ 
real or imaginary. Job, therefore, in thus condemning as 
false the true system of the universe, certainly did not 
mean to teach this system. In this case, then, as in the 
other, the passage injures the cause of my opponents. 

It is also a well-known fact that no intelligent writer 
ever uses, as figures, ideas which are generally understood 
to be literally true by the people for whom he writes. In 
Europe and in America the idea now generally prevails 
that the earth is a globe; that she literally revolves on her 
own axis, thus giving us the alternations of day and night; 
and that she also literally revolves in an orbit around the 
sun, thus giving us a change of seasons. This being the 
prevailing idea upon the subject, no European or American 
writer, be his own ideas what they may, would ever think 
of such a thing as giving this very description of the 
earth, and yet intend his language to be understood as fig- 


THE CREATION. 


217 


urative. So in regard to the writers of the Bible. Among 
the people of their time, the idea of a flat and stationary 
earth, a solid sky, etc., were generally accepted as literally 
correct. When, therefore, these writers represented the 
earth as flat and stationary, the sky as a solid structure or 
firmament, etc., and this they all did, they were giving 
what they very well knew the people would accept as lit¬ 
erally true descriptions of these things. Knowing this 
fact, these writers, no matter what their own views on the 
subject may have been, must, of necessity, have intended 
their writings to be understood in a strictly literal sense. 

From all this, it is evident that, if the writers in ques¬ 
tion themselves believed the earth to be flat and stationary, 
the sky to be a solid structure, etc., they were too ignorant 
to write anything, on these subjects at least, worthy of our 
acceptance. If, on the other hand, they deliberately de¬ 
ceived the people, by giving what they themselves knew 
to be false descriptions of these things, then it is equally 
evident that they were too dishonest to write anything, on 
any subject, worthy of our acceptance. In either case* 
their writings are totally worthless. 

If, as some of my opponents claim, the writers of the 
Bible themselves understood the true system of the uni¬ 
verse, why did they never impart a knowledge of that 
system to the people who looked to them, and, in many 
cases, paid them for instruction? They saw that, in regard 
to these things, the people were in error. Why, then, did 
they, in all their writings, confirm that error? Why did 
they not rather correct it? Did God inspire them to bind 
the people to error, as they certainly did, by endorsing 
that error in all their writings? By this endorsement, they 
rendered it impossible for any but infidels, who reject 
their writings, to ever escape from the erroneous ideas of 
a flat and stationary earth, a solid sky, a day independent 
of the sun, etc. The Hebrews always did understand 
these descriptions of the earth, the sky, etc., in a strictly 


218 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


literal sense. And did the Hebrews never correctly under¬ 
stand their own writings? 

Besides all this, how did it happen that, for more than 
fifteen hundred years, the Christians also universally 
understood the Bible to teach a flat and stationary earth, 
a solid sky, and all the other false doctrines which I now 
charge it with teaching? If, in teaching that the earth is 
a globe revolving in space, Galileo was simply promulgat¬ 
ing a doctrine of the Bible, how did the highest authorities 
of the church manage to prove , as they did, that his teach¬ 
ings, on this subject, were diametrically opposed to those of 
the Bible? Why did they punish him as a heretic, and 
why did they compel him to recant? So of Bruno. If, in 
teaching that there are other worlds besides the earth , he 
was simply promulgating a doctrine of the Bible, how did 
the highest authorities of the church manage to prove, as 
they did, that his teachings, on this subject, were diamet¬ 
rically opposed to those of the Bible ? And why did they 
burn him as a heretic? Were there, for more than fifteen 
centuries, no Christians at all, not even the apostles them¬ 
selves, who had sufficient intelligence to correctly under¬ 
stand the plain teachings of the Bible on this subject? 
Were there none sufficiently intelligent to discover the 
beautiful harmony, had there been any such, which my 
opponents would fain have us believe exists between the 
teachings of the Bible, and the demonstrated truths of 
science? Has it, indeed, been left, for thousands of years, 
for my opponents alone to discover this beautiful harmony, 
which none before them ever even suspected to exist, and 
which, even now, none others are able to perceive ? 
Finally, how did it happen that the true system of the 
universe was discovered, and made known to the world, 
not by the champions of the Bible, but by those whom 
these champions bitterly opposed and persecuted, as 
heretics and infidels, whose teachings had a direct tend¬ 
ency to overthrow the Bible, and who, consequently, were 
fit only for torments, both in this world and in the world 


THE CREATION. 219 

to come.? But let us see what Dr. Wm. Smith, in his 
Bible Dictionary, has to say on the subject. 

Of the firmament, he says : “ The Hebrew term rakia , 
so translated, is generally regarded as expressive of sim¬ 
ple expansion , and is so rendered in the margin of the A. 
Y. (Gen. i, 16). The root means to expand by beating, 
whether by the hand, the foot, or any instrument. It is 
especially used of beating out metals into thin plates (Ex. 
xxxix, 3; Num. xvi, 39). The sense of solidity , therefore, 
is combined with the ideas of expansion and tenuity in the 
term. The same idea of solidity runs through all the ref¬ 
erences to the rakia. In Ex. xxiv, 10, it is represented as 
.a solid floor. So again in Ezek. i, 22-26, the firmament is 
the floor on which the throne of the Most High is placed. 
Further, the office of the rakia in the economy of the 
w r orld demanded strength and substance. It was to serve as 
a division between the waters above and the waters below 
:(Gen. i, 7). In keeping with this view the rakia was pro¬ 
vided with windows and doors through which the rain and 
ihe snow might descend (Gen. vii, 11; Is. xxiv, 18; Mai. 
iii, 10; Ps. lxxviii, 23). A secondary purpose which the 
rakia served, was to support the heavenly bodies, the sun, 
moon, and stars (Gen. i, 14), in which they were fixed as 
nails, and from which, consequently, they might be said to 
drop off” (Is. xiv, 12; xxxiv, 4; Matt, xxiv, 29). Dr. 
Smith also says: “ The earth was regarded not only as the 
central point of the universe, but as the universe itself, 
every other body—the heavens, sun, moon, and stars— 
being subsidiary to, and, as it 'were, the complements of 
the earth.” So much for the testimony of one of the 
ablest Bible critics of modern times. 

You will notice that Dr. Smith speaks of the heavens 
as a body, and enumerates it with the sun, the moon, and 
the stars, as one of “the complements of the earth.” By 
many, the heavens or sky was supposed to be composed of 
metallic plates. Indeed, as I have just proved by Dr. 


220 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Smith’s testimony, this is the primary meaning of the He¬ 
brew word rakia. 

The testimony of standard Bible Dictionaries, like the 
one from which I have just been quoting, ought to be suf¬ 
ficient to decide the questions at issue. In order, how¬ 
ever, to leave my opponents no possible room for caviling, 
I will now prove, by the direct testimony of the Bible 
itself, the truth of every charge that I have preferred 
against it. 

1. By the following passages I prove that the Bible 
represents the earth as a stationary body, firmly fixed upon 
pillars , or resting upon the waters of the great deep, or on 
other material foundations. In these, and all the other 
passages that I shall quote,-the words marked as emphatic 
are so marked by myself. “ For the pillars of the earth are 
the Lord’s, and he hath set the world upon them ” (1 Sam. 
ii, 9). “ Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the 

earth ? . . . Who hath laid the measure thereof, if 

thou knowest ? Or who hath stretched the line upon it ?’ 
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? Or who 
laid the corner-stone thereof? (Job xxxviii, 4-6). “Who 
laid the foundations of the earth that it should not be 
removed forever ?” (Ps. civ, 5). “ Which shaketh the earth 

out of her place, and the pillars thereof tremble” (Job ix,, 
6). “ Mine hand also hath laid the foundations of the 

earth” (Is. xlviii, 13). “The earth and all the inhabitants 
thereof are dissolved; I bear up the pillars of it” (Ps. 
lxxv, 3). “ Hear ye, O mountains, the Lord’s controversy, 

and ye strong foundations of the earth ” (Mic. vi, ii). “ For 
the windows from on high are open and the foundations of 
the earth do shake. The earth shall reel to and fro like a 
drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage ” (Is. xxiv, 
18-20). “ The world also is established that it cannot be 

moved ” (Ps. xciii, 1). “And the channels of the sea ap¬ 
peared, the foundations of the world were discovered ” (2 
Sam. xxii, 16). “ Which . . . layeth the foundations' 

of the earth ” (Zech. xii, 1). “ And thou, Lord, in the be- 


THE CREATION. 


221 


ginning liast laid the foundations of the earth ” (Heb. i, 
10). “For the earth is the Lord’s, ... he hath 
founded it upon the seas , and established it upon the floods ” 
(Ps. xxiv, 1, 2). “ To him that stretched out the earth above 

the waters ” (Ps. cxxxvi, 6). Of necessity all these declara¬ 
tions and representations are either true or false. Dare my 
opponents say that they are all true? If not, dare they 
say that they are.all false? If not, what do they dare say 
on the subject? 

2. By the following passages, I prove that the Bible 
represents the earth as a flat body—as being “spread 
forthf “ stretched outfl etc.; terms that could not be applied 

to a body of a spherical form, such as we now know the 
earth to be. “ Thus saith God the Lord, ... he that 
spread forth the earth ...” (Is. xlii, 5). “ To him that 

stretched out the earth above the waters ” (Ps. cxxxvi, 6). “ I 

am the Lord . . . that spreadeth abroad the earth by 

myself” (Is. xliv, 24). “And thou, Lord, in the beginning, 
hast laid the foundations of the earth ; and the heavens are 
the works of thine hands. They shall perish ; but thou re- 
mainest: and they shall wax old as doth a garment. And 
as a vesture shalt thou fold them up. ...” (Heb. i, 
10, 12). Do my opponents really believe that the earth 
ever was, in very fact, thus “ spread forth,” “ stretched 
out . . . above the waters,” etc.? And do they really 
Believe that it ever will be, in very fact, thus folded up like 
a vesture ? 

3. By the following passages, I prove that the Bible 

represents the earth as the principal body in the universe ; 
as affording plenty of room for all the heavenly bodies, 
besides great numbers of heavenly devils, to fall upon; 
and as being so spread out under these things that they 
all inevitably strike it, when they do fall. “ How art thou 
fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning ” (Is. xiv, 
12). “ And all the hosts of heaven shall be dissolved, and 

the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll; and all 
their hosts shall fall down as the leaf falleth off from the 


222 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


vine, and as a falling fig from the fig-tree ” (Is. xxxiv, 4).. 
“And the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of 
the heavens shall be shaken” (Matt, xxiv, 29). “And the 
third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven ? 
burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part 
of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters” (Rev., 
viii, 10). “ And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star fall 
from heaven unto the earth ” (Rev. ix, l) t “ I beheld Satan 
as lightning fall from heaven” (Luke x, 18). “And there 
was war in heaven; Michael and his angels fought against 
the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and 
prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in 
heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, ... he 
was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out 
with him” (Rev. xii, 7-9). “And the stars of heaven fell 
unto the earth, even as a fig-tree casteth her untimely figs 
when she is shaken of a mighty wind, ... ” (Rev. vi, 

13, 14). To say nothing about the devils, do my oppo¬ 
nents truly believe that “ the stars of heaven” ever did, or 
ever will, come rattling down thus upon the earth, like so 
many figs? 

4. By the following passages, I prove that the Bible 
represents what we call the sky as a solid structure or 
firmament, placed like a vast inverted bowl over the earth. 
“And God made the firmament, and divided the waters 
which were under the firmament from the waters which 
were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called 
the firmament heaven” (Gen. i, 7, 8). “Hast thou with 
him spread out the sky, which is strong , and as a molten 
looking-glass ?” (Job xxxvii, 18). Are my opponents willing 
to swear that they do sincerely believe in the existence of 
any such firmament—of any such strong sky, composed of 
metal, as were the mirrors or looking-glasses of ancient 
times? 

5. By the following passages, I prove that the Bible 
has vast bodies of w^ater placed above this firmament, and, 
consequently, above the sun, the moon, and the stars* 


THE CREATION. 


223 

which, as I shall soon prove, were set in the firmament. 
I also prove that these waters may, at any time, be made 
to pour down upon the earth, through windows or doors, 
made for this purpose, in the body of the firmament. 
“And God made the firmament, and divided the waters 
which were under the firmament from the waters which 
were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called 
the firmament heaven ” (Gen. i, 7, 8). “ In the six hun¬ 

dredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seven¬ 
teenth day of the month, the same day were all the fount¬ 
ains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of 
heaven were opened. And the rain was upon the earth 
forty days and forty nights” (Gen. vii, 11, 12). “The 
fountains also of the deep, and the windows of heaven 
were stopped, and the rain from heaven [not from the 
clouds] was restrained” (Gen. viii, 2). “Though he had 
commanded the clouds from above, and opened the doors 
of heaven ” (Ps. lxviii, 23). Are any of you so completely 
blinded by priest-craft as to really believe that there actu¬ 
ally are any such bodies of water above the sun, the moon, 
and the stars, and that this water can be made to pour 
down upon the earth, through any such windows or doors, 
in any such strong sky or firm heaven? 

6. By the following passages, I prove that, in order to 
keep them from falling, the Bible has the sun, the moon, 
and the stars, all necessarily at an equal distance from 
the earth, and a little below the waters of which I have 
just been speaking, set or stuck, like nails, into this firma¬ 
ment or solid sky. I also prove that this firmament is so 
violently shaken, sometimes, that the heavenly bodies, and 
living beings, such as dragons, angels, etc., drop out of it 
and fall to the earth. “And God made two great lights; 
the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to 
rule the night: he made the stars also. And God set them 
in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the 
earth, and to rule over the day, and over the night, and to 
divide the light from the darkness” (Gen. i, 16-18). “And 


224 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tlie stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a fig-tree 
castetli her untimely figs. And the heavens departed as a 
scroll when it is rolled together” (Rev. vi, 13, 14). “. . . 

and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the 
heavens shall be shaken” (Matt, xxiv, 29). Can any really 
intelligent person truly believe that the heavenly bodies— 
the untold millions of worlds of the universe, all at an 
equal distance from the earth, and all a little lower than 
are the waters which are “ above the firmament”—actually 
Are thus stuck like nails into a solid sky, and that they 
actually can be, and have been, and are yet to be, thus 
shaken out of it, and made to fall, like figs upon the 
earth ? 

7. By the following passages, I prove that, like the 
pagans of old, the Bible locates the throne of God on the 
upper or convex surface of this firmament, on the same 
surface on which are the waters which I have described- 
I prove, too, that the Bible represents this solid sky or 
heaven as being always directly above the earth, so that 
whatever falls from heaven, is bound to strike the earth) 
and wdiatever ascends from the earth, to any considerable 
hight, is bound to reach heaven. In proving this, I prove 
that, of necessity, the earth must remain stationary, 
directly under this solid heaven, or else that this heaven, 
with God and all his hosts upon it, is so connected w r itli 
the earth as to accompany her in all her revolutions. I 
also prove that the Bible represents this firmament or 
solid heaven as something capable of standing by itself, 
after all the heavenly bodies have been shaken out of it; 
as something capable of taking fire, and being burned up 
or melted; as being something capable of being rolled 
together, as a scroll, and taken aw^ay. “ And they saw the 
God of Israel: and there was under his feet as it were a 
paved work of sapphire stone, and as it were the body of 
heaven in his clearness” (Ex. xxiv, 10). “ And above the 

firmament that was over their heads w r as the likeness of a 
throne as the appearance of a sapphire stone. . . .” 


THE OREATION. 


225 


(Ezek. i, 26). " The Lord is in his holy temple, the Lord’s 

temple is in heaven. . (Ps. xi, 4). “For as the heaven 
is high above the earth. . (Ps. ciii, 11). “And the 
great dragon was cast ont [of heaven] into the earth, and 
his angels were cast ont with him” (Rev. xii, 9). “How 
art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morn¬ 
ing! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst 
weaken the nations” (Is. xiv, 12). “I beheld Satan as 
lightning fall from heaven” (Luke x, 18). “And the stars 
of heaven fell unto the earth. . . And the heaven 

departed as a scroll when it is rolled together ” (Rev. vi> 
13, 14). “. . . and the heavens are the works of thine 
hands. And as a vesture slialt thou fold them up, and 
they shall be changed” (Heb. i, 10, 12). “But the day of 
the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which 
the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and . . 

wherein the heavens being on fire, shall be dissolved; and 
the elements shall melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless 
we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a 
new earth, wherein dwelletli righteousness ” (2 Pet. iii, 
10-13). Do you really believe all these things? If you 
do, then, perhaps, you can tell us whether the earth 
remains stationary under the solid sky or heaven in ques¬ 
tion, or whether this heaven, with its God, its angels, its 
innumerable hosts of saints, its vast bodies of water, its 
sun, its moon, and its stars, accompany the earth, in all 
her revolutions. We would be specially pleased to have 
you inform us whether the sun, in particular, does, or does 
not, accompany the earth, in all her revolutions around 
himself. 

8. By the following passages, I prove that the Bible 
represents this solid sky or heaven as having foundations, 
resting, like the rim or edge of an inverted bowl, upon the 
earth, or in the waters, upon which the earth herself is 
represented as being "stretched out.” “The pillars of 
heaven tremble, . . (Job xxvi, 11), “. . . “the 

foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was 


226 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


wroth ” (2 Sam. xxii, 8). “ Tlius saith the Lord, the heaven 

is my throne, and the earth is my foot-stool ” (Is. lxvi, 1). 
“ It is he that sitteth upon the circle of the earth, . . . 

that stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain, and spreadeth 
them out as a tent to dwell in ” (Is. xl, 22). “ Who . . . 

stretchest out the heavens like a curtain. Who layest 
the beams of his chambers in the waters. He watereth the 
hills from his chambers ” (Ps. civ, 2, 3, 13). As here 
described, heaven spread out “as a tent to dwell in,” cor¬ 
responds exactly with what we call the sky, as it appears 
to our unaided vision. Since God was supposed to sit 
upon the heavens, and since the heavens, thus used by 
him for a seat, were supposed to rest with their circular 
edge, like the edge of an inverted bowl, upon the earth, 
the author very consistently speaks of him as sitting 
“ upon the circle of the earth.” As here mentioned, the 
“ circle of the earth ” can be nothing else than the visible 
horizon—the circle formed by the sky where it seems to 
rest upon the earth. That portion of the circular edge of 
the sky or heaven, which extended out beyond the land 
into the waters, was supposed to rest upon beams, or some¬ 
thing else more substantial than the water. With this 
prevailing idea in his mind, therefore, the author very con¬ 
sistently speaks of God as laying “ the beams of his cham¬ 
bers in the waters;” and, in view of the supposed presence 
of vast bodies of water, “ above the firmament,” right in 
God’s dwelling-place, he also speaks very consistently 
when he says of God, “ He watereth the hills from his 
chambers.” When we consider the true standpoint of 
opinion occupied by the author when writing these pas¬ 
sages, their meaning becomes very plain. But do you 
really believe that any such solid sky or heaven—any such 
vast inverted bowl—does actually rest with ils circular edge 
upon the earth, thus forming what the author calls “ the 
circle of the earth,” or upon beams laid in the waters? 

9. Finally, by the following passages, I prove that the 
Bible represents day as entirely independent of the sun. 


THE CREATION. 


22T 


and liglit as entirely independent of any source, or of any 
motion. “And God said, Let there be light, and there 
was light. And God saw the light that it was good: and 
God divided the light from the darkness. And God called 
the light day, and the darkness he called night: and the 
evening and the morning were the first day. . . . And 

God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the 
day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the 
stars also. And set them in the firmament of the heaven 
to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day, and 
over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. 

. . . And the evening and the morning were the fourth 

day ” (Gen. i, 3-19). From these passages, we learn that 
the Bible certainly teaches that light existed as a kind of 
body before there was anything at all to shine, or give 
forth light; and that day, composed of this body, existed, 
with its evenings and mornings, during three full days, or, 
as some theologians have it, during three full geological 
epochs before there was any sun to produce day. We also 
learn that the Bible teaches that the sun was finally made, 
not to produce the light which constituted day, but to 
divide this already-existing light from the already-existing 
darkness. “While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or 
the stars be not darkened, ...” (Eccl. xii, 2). Here 
we certainly have four distinct kinds of luminous bodies: 
the sun, the light, the moon, and the stars.” The day is 
thine, the night also is thine: thou hast prepared the light 
and the sun” (Ps. lxxiv, 16). Here, again, we have light 
as a distinct bodj\ 

I have now fully established the fact that the Bible 
certainly does teach a great number of very important, 
and yet demonstrably false doctrines concerning the form, 
the nature, the position, etc.,” of the sky, the sun, the 
moon, the stars, and the waters, and concerning the source 
or cause of day, the nature and source of light, etc., etc. 
Were it necessary, I could adduce a great number of addi¬ 
tional passages all tending to establish the same fact. 


228 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Further proof, however, is surely unnecessary. And 
now, let me ask, can that book be the inspired word of an 
all-wise God which teaches so many false, and so few true 
doctrines, and can the teachings of that book be worthy of 
the confidence of mankind? 

All the passages which I have quoted are either plain 
statements of what, at the time they were made, were, 
almost universally, believed to be literal facts, or plain 
allusions to such supposed facts. As I have already 
shown, therefore, the writers of these passages could not 
have intended that their language should be understood 
in any other than its literal sense. At any rate, it was 
understood only in its literal sense, by those for whom it 
was intended, and the authors, although living right among 
those people, and knowing full well how they understood 
it, never so much as intimated that they did not under¬ 
stand it in its proper and intended sense. Had they 
intended that their language should be understood in a 
figurative sense, they certainly would have managed, in 
some way, to make it so understood. When, therefore, 
they asserted that God had set the world upon pillars, or 
stretched it out upon the waters, and -when they asserted 
that he had made a solid sky or firmament, that he had 
made day independent of the sun, etc., etc., they evidently 
asserted either so many actual facts, or so many absolute 
and inexcusable falsehoods, and we must accept their 
assertions accordingly. 

As I have likewise already shown, the whole Christian 
Church for more than fifteen centuries, also universally 
understood these passages to be strictly literal descrip¬ 
tions of real objects, and of actual events; and, so long as 
they retained the power to do so, they burnt as heretics 
and infidels, all who dared to teach any doctrine in conflict 
with the literal teachings of these, and similar passages. 
After a long and desperate struggle, however, in defense 
of their flat and stationary earth, their solid sky or firma¬ 
ment, etc., the champions of the Bible were at last com- 


THE CREATION. 


229 


pelled to yield to the overwhelming power of the invin¬ 
cible truths of science, and to admit that the earth never 
was, as taught by the Bible, flat and stationary; that the 
sky never w^as a solid blue bowl inverted over the earth ; 
that day never was independent of the sun; that light 
never was independent of a source, etc. In making these 
enforced admissions—and this they did with a very poor 
grace—these champions of the Bible, as a matter of course, 
virtually confessed that, in regard to all of these things, 
they had themselves always been the advocates of error, 
and that, for teaching the truth, they had put to death, by 
the most horrible of all known tortures, vast numbers of 
men, wiser, braver, and better than themselves. They never 
did, however, have the manliness and the honesty to make 
these humiliating confessions in words, and to put them 
upon their records. 

But what were these intolerant bigots, convicted as 
they were of error and of murder, to do with the Bible, 
by the teachings of which alone they had been enabled so 
long to sustain their many gross errors, and to commit, 
with impunity, their many horrible murders? In this 
book, they still found, as clearly taught as ever, the now 
confessedly erroneous doctrines of a flat and stationary 
earth, a solid sky, etc.—the pernicious doctrines that had 
led themselves to commit so many cruel murders upon the 
advocates of the truths of science. Under such circum¬ 
stances, honest men would have promptly condemned this 
book as a pernicious thing—as the most formidable of all 
obstacles to the advancement of light, knowledge, civil 
liberty, and true happiness among men. Unfortunately, 
however, the priesthood of the Christian Church seems 
never to have been, to any considerable extent, composed 
of honest and manly men. On the contrary, it seems 
always to have been composed chiefly of blind and intoler¬ 
ant bigots, or of selfish and time-serving hypocrites. We 
need not be at all surprised, therefore, that they still 
retained the Bible, and taught it to the people as the In- 


230 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


spired Word of God, and as absolutely true, after they 
themselves very well knew that it was filled with mon¬ 
strously false and pernicious doctrines. So long as it 
enabled them, as it did, to keep the people in subjection 
to themselves, and, without any honest labor on their own 
part, to live in luxurious ease, they cared precious little 
what might be the character of its teachings. In order to 
retain it, however, after the discovery of the fact that 
nearly all of its teachings were utterly false, and, neces¬ 
sarily, pernicious, they found themselves compelled to 
make the wonderful discovery that its teachings had never 
been properly understood, even by its authors themselves; 
that, when properly understood, its teachings did not, in 
the least, conflict with the known truths of science; that 
the very things which they themselves had so often and so 
clearly proved to be direct and utterly irreconcilable con¬ 
tradictions, and on the strength of which they had com¬ 
mitted so many atrocious murders, were, in reality, only 
so many beautiful harmonies. 

In order, however, to make this truly wonderful, 
and yet absolutely necessary discovery, the champions of 
the Bible found themselves compelled first to make the 
equally wonderful discovery that, when speaking of the 
origin, the form, and the nature, of the earth, the sky, the 
sun, etc., none of the writers of the Bible ever meant what 
they said, or said what they meant; that when, for instance, 
they spoke of a day as being composed of light, as being 
the opposite of night or darkness, and as having an even¬ 
ing and a morning, they did not mean a day at all, but 
meant a geological epoch, a quantity of caloric, or some 
other thing entirely different from that which the language 
so clearly describes; that, in short, they meant anything 
and everything, that priests might, in the future, find it 
necessary to have them mean, in order to make their 
teachings harmonize with those of science. All these facts 
are too well known to require any proof. Every person 
well acquainted with the history of the Christian Church 


THE CREATION. 


231 


knows that, until they were compelled to do so, the 
champions of the Bible never thought of such a thing as 
giving any other than a strictly literal meaning to any of 
the passages which I have called in question. It is also 
a well known fact that, notwithstanding the demonstrated 
revelations of science to the contrary, a large portion of 
the entire membership of the Church still hold that the 
earth is flat and stationary, the sky a solid structure, etc.; 
and that, to sustain this belief, they still quote, as did the 
entire Church of old, the plain teachings of the Bible. 

Could these protean champions of the Bible have found 
a single passage, in that book, which really did describe 
the earth, or clearly refer to it, as a globe revolving in 
space, would they have ever thought of such a thing as 
giving to the language of that passage any other than 
a literal meaning? Would they not, on the contrary, have 
vauntingly pointed to that passage as the only source 
whence the world ever could have obtained a knowledge 
of the true system of the universe ? And yet, from the 
fact that, in their time, such a description of the earth 
would not have been understood by the people as at all a 
literally true one, would not the writers of the Bible, if 
they had given such a description, have been far more 
likely to mean it as figurative, than they were to so mean 
the descriptions which they did give and which they knew 
would be understood in a literal sense? If, then, the 
extremely vague passage which I have quoted from Job, 
and which is the only one of the passages in question of 
which my opponents are now willing to accept a literal 
rendering, really does refer to what we now know to be 
the true form and condition of the earth, is not this 
passage far more likely to have been meant as figurative 
language than are any of the other passages in question 
which describe the earth, or clearly refer to it, as a flat 
body, firmly fixed upon pillars, or spread out, like a vast 
floating garden, upon the waters? 

Besides all these things, every intelligent person knows 


232 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


that no serious writer or speaker ever degrades his subject 
by the use of figures far less beautiful, strong, and grand 
than are the real ideas he intends to convey. Thus a cer¬ 
tain writer, wishing to convey the highest possible idea of 
the real oratorical powers of Pericles, accomplishes his 
purpose, in an admirable manner, by saying of that great 
statesman : “ He lightened, he thundered, he shook Greece 
to her center.” Here we have strong and beautiful figures 
correctly used. Such a writer would never attempt to 
convey a literally correct idea of the great orator in ques¬ 
tion by likening him to a school-boy saying his piece. So 
no writer, wishing to convey a literally correct idea of the 
real magnificence of one of our great ocean steamers, 
proudly careering over the mighty billows of the great 
deep, would ever think of such a thing as attempting to 
accomplish his purpose, by likening the steamer to an old 
ox-cart splashing through a mud-puddle And yet, such 
a figure, in such a case, would not so much degrade the 
subject, as would the Bible’s little one-horse flat earth, 
propped up on posts, or spread out like a garment upon 
the waters, if it were used as a figure of the unspeakable 
grandeur and glory of the universe as it really is. In 
attempting, as they did, to convey, by means of his works, 
the highest possible idea of what they understood to be 
the real glory of the omnipotent himself, would not the 
serious writers of the Bible, if, for that purpose, they used 
figures at all, have used the very highest ideas of which 
they were capable of conceiving ? Could they, then, have 
had any more exalted idea of the universe than that which 
they have given us in their little flat earth, their solid sky, 
etc.? Besides this, since, as you all well know, every 
figurative expression is intended to heighten and to 
beautify some real meaning, what was the real meaning 
which the Bible writers intended to heighten and beautify 
by the figure—if, indeed, it was a figure—of a little flat 
earth propped up on posts? Will my opponents please 
give us that real meaning ? 


THE CREATION. 


233 


I am aware that many of the champions of the Bible 
attempt to evade some of the difficulties which I have 
pointed out, by claiming that, as used in the Bible, the 
word firmament means simple expansion or empty space, 
and nothing more. In the margin of the Accepted Version, 
the word expansion is given as the rendering of the 
Hebrew word rakia, which, in the text itself, is rendered 
firmament. Professing to do so by inspiration of God, the 
Mormons or Latter Day Saints have in the text itself, re¬ 
placed the word firmament, with the word expanse. This 
change of rendering, however, can be of no service to the 
tottering cause of the champions of the Bible. In the first 
place, as I have already shown, the Hebrew word rakia, as 
well as the Latin word firmamentum, in all cases, involves 
the idea both of substance and of solidity. This new render¬ 
ing, therefore, of this word by the word expanse or expan¬ 
sion, in the sense of space alone, unconnected with the 
ideas of substance and solidity, is evidently a false render¬ 
ing. The fact that they resort to such a rendering at all, 
shows to what desperate straits the champions of the Bible 
are reduced, in their herculean efforts, not to convey the 
truth to the people, but to shield the Bible from the insur¬ 
mountable difficulties to which they perceive that, in the 
present light of science, it is exposed by a correct render¬ 
ing of the term in question. Granting them their new ren¬ 
dering of this term, however, let us see how much their 
cause is benefited thereby. 

As I have already shown, the rakia or firmament was 
something which did not exist till it was made , and the 
making of which occupied one-sixth of the entire time de¬ 
voted by God to the work of creation. Space, however, or 
simple expansion, as I have likewise already shown, from 
its very nature, must, of necessity, have always existed. It 
could not have been space, therefore, to the making of 
which God devoted the entire second day, or second geo¬ 
logical epoch of creation. If the rakia or firmament was, 
indeed, nothing but space or simple expansion, then, since 


234 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


this already existed, before the second day of creation, 
just as it did afterwards, we have nothing at all created on 
that day. This hypothesis, then, involves the blasphemy 
of charging God with having idled away that entire day, 
and with having then mendaciously claimed that he had 
spent it in making something which he very well knew 
that he had never made at all. I defy any escape from 
this unpleasant conclusion. Besides this, it is also a fact 
well known to every grammarian, that the words a and the , 
being limiting particles, cannot be applied to any but finite 
or limited objects. Space, therefore, being, of necessity, 
infinite, evidently cannot, when spoken of in its entirety, 
admit of either of these particles. The fact, then, that, in 
the passages in question, these particles are applied to the 
word firmament, is proof positive that the firmament was a 
finite or limited object; and that, if it consisted simply of 
space, it must, of necessity, have been only a limited por¬ 
tion of space, directly above or surrounding the earth. 
But was this limited portion of space ever absent from in¬ 
finite space, of which it forms a necessary part? Was it 
ever absent from existence so as to need to be made on the 
second day of creation? In what was the earth already 
existing, if not in this very same portion of space ? 

“ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst 
of the waters : and let it divide the waters from the waters. 
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters 
which were under the firmament from the waters which 
were above the firmament ” (Gen. i, 6, 7). From these pas¬ 
sages, we learn that the principal object for which the 
firmament was created, was to “ divide the waters from the 
waters.” We also learn that, at the very farthest, the firma¬ 
ment extended only from “ the waters which were under” it, 
to “the waters which were above ” it. “ Yery good,” says 
one of my opponents, “ the firmament is simply that por¬ 
tion of space which intervenes between the waters on the 
face of the earth, and the clouds.” But did not this por¬ 
tion of space have any existence until the second day of 


THE CREATION. 


235 


creation? Did God, in very fact, make this portion of 
space on that day? And how did he manage, without the 
aid of the sun, wdiich was not yet made, to raise clouds 
above this space? And where are the sun, the moon, and 
the stars, all of which, two days later, he set in this same 
firmament or limited portion of space? “The waters 
which w r ere above the firmament,” were bound to be above 
the sun, the moon, and the stars, which were not above it, 
but in it. And are all these heavenly bodies between our¬ 
selves and the clouds? They evidently must be, if your 
idea of the firmament be correct. 

Besides all these things, the Bible calls “ the firmament 
heaven,” and places God’s throne and his permanent 
dwelling-place in this heaven. And are God’s throne and 
his dwelling-place no farther from the earth than are the 
clouds? Does God, do the angels, do all the innumer¬ 
able hosts of “ just men made perfect,” at a distance of 
only one or two miles from us, accompany us in all our 
journeying around the sun? Besides this, we, being in 
this same limited portion of space, are bound to be in heaven 
also; in the very same heaven, too, in which God is, and, 
as we have already seen, at no great distance from him. 
In a balloon, we could reach him, almost any day. Being 
already as much in heaven as we ever can be, why need we 
make so much ado about going there? Why not each 
borrow a penny trumpet, and go to tooting away, and 
being like angels? 

In addition to all this, the Bible represents the firma¬ 
ment or heaven as something that is capable of growing 
old, as does a garment, and of being burnt up, or, at 
least, dissolved by heat; as something, too, that is not 
only capable of being folded up, like a vesture, or rolled 
together, like a scroll, and taken away, but that actually is 
to be thus disposed of, in order to make room for a new 
heaven that is to take its place. And is simple space or 
expansion capable of being thus dissolved by heat, and of 
being thus rolled together and taken away? And is new 


236 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


space capable of thus taking the place of old and worn-out 
space thus removed ? 

As I have already shown, the Bible also teaches that 
many stars and many devils or rebellious angels have 
fallen from this firmament or heaven, and have alighted 
upon the earth; and that all the balance of the stars, like 
so many figs, are yet to come rattling down in the same 
manner. In order to thus fall from heaven, it is evidently 
necessary for the stars and the devils to pass entirely out 
of heaven. In suffering this fall, however, the stars and. 
the devils do not pass out of space at all. They are just 
as much in space after the fall as they are before it. 
Space, then, cannot be the thing from which they fall. 
Besides this, if w^e extend the mere space firmament of 
my opponents only one or two miles from the earth, so as 
to have the clouds represent “the waters which were 
above the firmament,” we have not room for the sun, the 
moon, and the stars which were all set “in the firma¬ 
ment.” If, on the other hand, we extend this so-called- 
firmament, as we certainly must, to a sufficient distance 
from the earth to to take in all the countless millions of 
stars—of mighty worlds and systems of worlds of the 
entire illimitable universe, how are we to provide “the 
waters which were above the firmament,” and hence above 
the most distant star that is in the firmament? And, when 
we want a flood, how are we to make these waters, from 
their infinite distance—from their position entirely above* 
space—pour down, past the sun, the moon, and the stars 
upon the earth ? And, when we have enough, how are we 
to stop the balance of these waters from falling? Has 
your space firmament windows, or, rather, pipes that can 
be opened and closed at pleasure, extending to the earth, 
from the very boundaries of space ? 

Let the firmament be what it may, however, how are 
my opponents going to find room enough upon the earth 
for all the stars of the universe to fall upon when, like so 
many figs, they come rattling down upon her, as the Bible 


THE CREATION. 


237 


says they certainly will? We now know that some of the 
stars are millions of times larger than the earth. What 
power, then, has the earth to draw millions upon millions 
of such immense bodies, from infinite distances, to herself, 
as she would draw loosened figs from the top of a fig-tree? 
Besides this, we now know that some of the stars are mill¬ 
ions of times farther from the earth than are others. The 
Bible, however, teaches that they are to be all shaken out 
of the firmament or heaven at once, and all are to strike 
the earth at the same time. Will my opponents please 
explain to us how this can be, when some of the stars are 
so distant that, according to the laws of gravitation, it 
would require millions of years, if not eternity itself, for 
them to fall to the earth? From all these things, you 
must now clearly see that the Bible’s rakia or firmament 
w r as certainly not simple space or expansion. You must 
now clearly see that it certainly was nothing more nor less 
than the supposed solid sky or vast inverted blue bowl of 
the ancient pagans, into the under or concave side of which, 
all necessarily at an equal distance from the earth, the 
sun, the moon, and the stars were supposed to be set, to 
keep them from falling, and out of which it was supposed 
that they could all be shaken at once, and made to strike the 
earth at the same time. You must now clearly see that it 
was nothing more nor less than this imaginary blue bowl 
which, in the opinion of the Bible writers, as well as of 
the pagans, stood inverted over a flat and stationary earth; 
which had large bodies of water on its upper surface, and 
windows or openings in its body or substance, through 
which this water could be made to pour down upon the 
earth; which was spread out “ as a tent to dwell in,” 
which was capable of growing old, and of being folded up 
like a garment; which was capable of being burnt up, or 
dissolved by heat, which was capable of remaining standing 
alone, after all the hosts of heaven were shaken out of it; 
which was capable of being rolled together as a scroll and 


238 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


taken away; and which, finally, was capable of being- 
replaced by a new bine bowl of the same kind. You must 
now see that, with this idea of the firmament or heaven, 
and with this alone, all the language of the Bible that 
bears upon the subject at all, is clear and consistent. 
When God spoke of the “ fowl that may fly above the 
earth in the open firmament of heaven,” he evidently had 
reference to the open space on the inside of this vast in¬ 
verted blue bowl. Make the firmament anything else than 
this, and, as we have already seen, you reduce to absurd¬ 
ity every passage of the Bible that bears upon the sub¬ 
ject. 

Like the pagans, from whom they seem to have differed 
very little, if any, in their opinions on these subjects, the 
writers of the Bible represent the upper surface of this in¬ 
verted-blue-bowl firmament or heaven as the dwelling- 
place of a supreme God, and of an immense host of infe¬ 
rior deities or angels. Like the pagans, the Bible writers 
also represent their imaginary solid sky or heaven as hav¬ 
ing once been the theater of a terrible civil war, in which 
the victors tumbled the vanquished down headlong upon 
the earth. Like the pagans, the Bible writers represent 
the imaginary God or Ruler of this imaginary heaven as 
always having, among men, a set of special favorites whom 
he helps to rob and to butcher other men. Like the 
pagans, the Bible writers represent this imaginary God as 
being so remarkably fond of roast meats as to be willing 
to forgive a certain amount of sins as the price of a certain 
amount of these favorite articles of food. Like the pagans, 
the writers of the Bible represent this imaginary God as 
favoring, among his followers, the practice of slavery, of 
polygamy, of concubinage, and of almost every other form 
of licentiousness. Like the pagans, the Bible writers rep¬ 
resent this imaginary God as having come down to the 
earth himself, and, contrary to all our ideas of morality, 
gotten an unmarried woman with child. Finally, like the 
pagans, the Bible writers represent this imaginary God as. 


THE CREATION. 239 

an absolute and arbitrary despot, utterly opposed to every¬ 
thing of a republican nature. 

By the unequivocal testimony of the Bible itself, as 
read in the present light of science, I have now fully 
proved that the story of creation is utterly false, and, also, 
that every idea which we possess of a personal God, a per¬ 
sonal devil, a local hell, or a local heaven, is borrowed 
from the pagans, or is, at least, held in common with them. 

When, however, we prove, beyond all possible contra¬ 
diction, that the story of creation, and many other things 
found in the Bible, will not bear the test of reason, science, 
and common sense, the self-constituted champions of this 
book cry out that it was never intended to teach science; 
and that its language and its ideas had to be adapted to 
the comprehension of the ignorant people of the times in 
which it was written. From this, it appears that the Bible 
was never intended for any but the ignorant people of the 
times in which it was written. Why, then, do these same 
men persist in their attempts to thrust this confessedly un¬ 
scientific book upon the educated men of the present time, 
to whose superior intelligence, its language and its ideas 
were never intended to be adapted? And since the teacli- 
ing& of the Bible are as sadly wanting in reason and com¬ 
mon sense as they are in correct scientific information, 
why do not the champions of this book cry out also that it 
was never meant to teach either reason or common sense— 
that its language and its ideas were intended to be adapted 
to the comprehension of those only who never exercise 
either reason or common sense ? There would be more 
truth in this cry than there is in the cry they do make in 
regard to science. 

Admitting, however, that the Bible was not intended to 
teach science, was it, or w*as it not intended to teach the 
truth in all that it does teach? If it was not so intended, 
then, of course, its teachings are totally worthless. If it 
was so intended, was that intention, or was it not, fully 
carried out by the writers? If it was not, then, of course, 


240 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


as before, the teachings of the book are totally worthless. 
If it was, then, of course, all the teachings of the book are 
necessarily true—true, too, in the plain literal sense in 
which they were understood by the people for whom they 
were written, and to whose uncultivated comprehension 
they were specially adapted. On this latter hypothesis, 
which is undeniably the best of which the subject is capa¬ 
ble, the earth is certainly flat and stationary, as plainly 
taught by the Bible, and as understood by those for whom 
the Bible was intended; the sky is certainly a solid struc¬ 
ture ; the stars are certainly stuck into this solid structure, 
to keep them from falling, and they are certainly mere figs 
when compared in size with the earth; the day certainly 
is independent of the sun, etc., etc., just as the Bible plainly 
teaches that they are. 

If, however, the Bible was not intended to teach 
science, why do its champions make so many and so 
desperate efforts to prove that its teachings entirely 
harmonize with those of science? And why do they give 
to certain words meanings which none but scientists 
understand? Why, for instance, do they contend that the 
simple word day, as used in the story of creation, means a 
geological epoch, a quantity of caloric, etc., wdien they 
very well know that, even at the present time, the ideas 
expressed by these words are not understood by those 
entirely ignorant of science? 

Is it true, however, that the Bible was not intended to 
teach science? In claiming to teach the origin, the pro¬ 
cess of formation, and the final destiny of the earth, does 
it not claim to teach geology? In claiming to teach the 
origin, the size, the nature, the position, and the final 
destiny of the heavenly bodies, does it not claim to teach 
astronomy? In claiming to teach the origin, the nature, 
etc., of plants and animals, does it not claim to teach 
botany and zoology? In claiming to teach the origin, the 
nature, and the final destiny of man, does it not claim to 
teach the highest form of science, anthropology? In 


THE CREATION. 


241 


short, what science is there that it does not claim to 
teach? Take away its scientific teachings, and what 
becomes of your story of creation, of the fall of man, of 
the flood, etc.? And what becomes of your religion, 
founded as it is upon these stories? If, throughout the 
Bible, the various sciences, upon which it treats, be cor¬ 
rectly taught, then the earth is certainly a flat and stationary 
body, the sky a solid structure, etc. On this hypothesis, 
Christianity may be, and probably is, a true religion. If, 
however, on the other hand, the scientific teachings of the 
Bible be incorrect, if its flat and stationary earth, its solid 
sky or firmament, etc., be mere myths, then the Christian 
Beligion, founded, as it undeniable is, upon these myths, is 
bound to be a monstrous imposition. Which horn of this 
dilemma will my opponents choose ? 

With these remarks, I close my notice of the general 
creation. In demonstrating, as I certainly have, that the 
entire story of this pretended creation is a baseless fabri¬ 
cation, I have also demonstrated that the Bible of which 
this story forms an essential part, is the work, not of an 
all-wise God, but of grossly ignorant, if not basely dis¬ 
honest men. 

I will now close my analysis of creation, by noticing 
specially the creation of the devil, the serpent, and man. 
In the creation of these three notorious individuals, God 
seems to have made as great a mistake as he made when 
he created the earth flat and stationary, the sky solid, the 
day independent of the sun, light independent of a source, 
etc. Indeed, what did he do, in the earlier part of his 
career, but make mistakes? 

At what point in the eternal past the devil was made, 
and of what kind of material he was composed, I do not 
pretend to know. Indeed, he is not my devil. He consti¬ 
tutes a very valuable item of the stock in trade of our 
priests. They should be able, therefore, to tell you when 
he was made, and of what kind of material he is composed. 
All I need to know is that he derived liis existence and 


242 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


his powers from God, and that he is still completely sub¬ 
ject to God’s control. That he is thus one of God’s crea¬ 
tures, and that he is thus subject to God’s control, I sup¬ 
pose my opponents will not attempt to deny. Since, then, 
no evil effect can possibly result from any other than an 
evil cause, we are bound to admit that, if the devil be an 
evil effect, his cause or Creator is bound to be an evil 
cause. If God created the devil at all, he must, of neces¬ 
sity, have created all the elements, whether good or bad, 
that enter into this latter individual’s composition and 
character. This same remark is also equally true of the 
man, the serpent, and every other object. 

You object, however, that this view of the matter 
makes God himself the original source of all evil. It cer¬ 
tainly does; and yet, as I shall fully show in a future lec¬ 
ture, this is exactly what the Bible makes him. Indeed, 
to hold any other view would be to 1 make God the creator 
of only about one-lialf of the universe, and to have the bal¬ 
ance produced at the manufacturing establishment of his 
equally powerful creative rival. This dualism or two-God 
theory has actually been adopted in Persia and many other 
countries. Even in our own country, it is held, as a fun¬ 
damental doctrine, by a denomination usually called Two- 
Seed Baptists. By means of this theory, these dualistic 
theologians attempt to escape the otherwise unavoidable 
necessity of making their respective favorite deities the 
sources of all evil. This theory, however, involves the ab¬ 
surdity of having two Great First Causes, two Supreme 
Rulers, etc. I do not know, therefore which is in the 
worse condition, these dualists with their two gods, the 
one good and the other evil, or you with your one God, a 
mixture of good and evil. 

Of necessity, everything in nature must be either good or 
evil. Indeed, evil is nothing more nor less than the ab¬ 
sence or the opposite of good, just as darkness is the ab¬ 
sence or the opposite of light, silence, of sound, etc. It is 
evident, therefore, that, of necessity, every good must have 


THE CREATION. 


243 


its opposite evil. It is equally evident, also, that, in the 
economy of nature, evil is just as necessary as is good; and 
that, of necessity, these two principles are very evenly bal¬ 
anced in the universe. When, therefore, you attempt to 
screen your favorite God from the charge of being the au¬ 
thor of all evil, by assuming, as its author, a bad God or 
devil, you necessarily make this latter personage a Creator, 
just as necessary to the existence of the universe, and a 
Ruler, just as necessary to its government, as you make 
your favorite God himself. You make the two gods abso¬ 
lutely necessary to each other. Neither the one nor the 
other can possibly work alone. 

This, however, is simply the dualism or Buddhism 
which you so utterly condemn in the Persians, the Hindoos, 
and others. The only difference between their form of 
Buddhism and your own is that, by making the bad God 
self-existent and independent, they do really screen their 
so-called good God, from the charge of being the author of 
evil; while, by absurdly making your devil or bad God a 
created and dependent being, you throw all the responsi¬ 
bility of evil back upon his Creator and Sustainer. In this 
way, you make your dualism or devil-dodge an utter fail¬ 
ure. It does not screen your so-called good God at all, 
from the charge of being the author of all evil. 

When God had the dirt or other material ready, of 
which to make the devil, he undoubtedly knew just what 
kind of a creature he wished to make of it; and, when 
he began to w r ork upon this material, he necessarily either 
succeeded or failed in making of it such a creature as he 
undertook to make. If he succeeded, then, of necessity, 
the devil is just such a being as God made him to be; and 
any unfavorable criticisms upon the devil’s character, are, 
necessarily, so many blasphemous reflections against God. 
himself, who made that character. If, however, on the 
other hand, God failed to make of the material in question 
such a creature as he undertook to make, then, of neces¬ 
sity, on account of his total incompetency, he was a very 


244 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


unfit person to be meddling with so dangerous material. 
If, therefore, there be anything wrong in the devil’s char¬ 
acter, God himself, in any possible view of the case, is 
bound to be the author of that wrong; and hence you can¬ 
not possibly condemn the devil for being what he is, with¬ 
out condemning God for making him what he is. 

You object, however, that God did not make the devil evil 
—that this latter personage became evil after he left God’s 
hands. But could such a change have taken place in the 
devil, unless, at the time of his creation, the elements of 
that change had been implanted in him, as a part of his 
constitution? Was not that change an effect which was 
bound to have a cause? And, if, as you pretend, this 
change was an evil effect, was it not bound to have 
an evil cause ? Who, then, or what, was that cause ? 
The devil himself, not having as yet become an evil 
being, evidently could not have acted as an evil cause 
upon himself to make himself become evil. Of necessity, 
the elements of that evil change must have been present 
either in his own constitution, as he came from the hands 
of God, or in the external influences which were brought 
to bear upon him, and which were also of God. In any 
view of the case, then, was not God himself, of necessity, 
the evil cause of that evil effect? Could anything differ¬ 
ent from the devil, just as he now is, have resulted from 
the particular combination of causes that made him just 
what he now is? And was not that combination of causes 
all of God ? When making this personage, so obnoxious 
and yet so profitable to the priests, did God, or did he not, 
intend to make him a permanently good being ? If he did 
not so intend, was he not wofully wanting in goodness? If 
he did so intend, and failed only from inability to succeed, 
was he not wofully wanting in power? In either case, 
was he not a very unsafe person to be tampering with the 
materials of which devils are made? 

Of necessity, when about to make the devil, God either 
did, or did not, know just what kind of a character this 


THE CREATION. 


245 


proposed new creature would ultimately become. If he 
did not know this, was he not a very ignorant God, and do 
you not lie when you teach that he is omniscient ? Had so 
ignorant a God any right to be manufacturing devils, and 
turning them loose upon us, without knowing what they 
would become, and how much harm they would do us? If 
he had been infinite in either goodness or wisdom, would 
he ever have made any such hurtful and unhappy crea¬ 
tures at all? You know that he would not. 

If, however, on the other hand, as you teach, God is 
omniscient, and foreknows all things—if he foreknew ex¬ 
actly what would be the devil’s future character and future 
career, then the questions naturally arise, how did he come 
to possess that foreknowledge, and why did he, while in 
possession of this foreknowledge, make the devil at all? 
As yet, the devil himself lay scattered around in the form 
of dirt, or other raw materials. While yet in that form, it 
was evidently utterly impossible for him to plan for him¬ 
self any such character, or any such career, as God already 
foreknew he was to have. And yet, of necessity, that char¬ 
acter and that career had to be fore-planned before they 
could possibly be foreknown. But who, except God him¬ 
self, had power to fore-plan any such character or any 
such career? Indeed, who, except God himself, knew that 
any such personage as the devil was ever to exist at all ? 
Is it not evident, therefore, that, in order to foreknow just 
what the devil’s character and career were to be, it was. 
absolutely necessary for God himself to pre-determine 
just what they should be? At any rate, the fact that, with 
the devil’s whole future character and future career clearly 
spread out, as it were, before him, God proceeded to make 
that personage, is proof positive that he made him ex¬ 
pressly for that very character and that very career. Had 
he made him for any other character, and for any other 
career, then the devil would never have been and would 
never have done what God foreknew that he was to be, and 
was to do. This would have reduced God’s supposed fore- 


246 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


knowledge into extremely poor guessing. Indeed, it is 
evidently an utter impossibility for God to foreknow a 
tiling as actually existing, in the future, or an event as 
actually occurring, until he has himself determined, by 
the exercise of his own almighty power, to render it utterly 
impossible for that thing not to exist, and for that event 
not to occur. In other words, he cannot foreknow a thing, 
as existing in the future, which is never to exist at all; 
and he alone has power over future things to make them 
exist, or not exist, at his pleasure. And thus it was with 
the devil. He had nothing to do with the fixing of his 
own future character and future career. While he was 
still a mere pile of dirt, or other raw material, his future 
character, and future career, were unalterably fixed for 
him, as inevitable facts, by the Almighty himself. Thus 
you see that God himself was certainly the deliberate 
planner and producer of all evil. Thus you see, too, that 
the devil is nothing more than a mere instrument, which 
God manufactured to his own liking, and with which he 
performs his own evil works. Thus you see, finally, that 
God himself is the greatest devil there is. I defy any 
escape from these conclusions. 

Again, when God had the pile of dirt ready of which 
to make Adam, Snake & Co., did he, or did he not, fore¬ 
know just what would be their respective characters, their 
respective careers, and their respective final destinies? 
If he did foreknow all these things, must he not himself 
have fore-planned them, and made it utterly impossible 
for them not to be? Could he have foreknown that all 
these things certainly would be, unless he had unalterably 
predetermined that they certainly should be? Of neces¬ 
sity, God’s perfect foreknowledge of all things must have 
extended to all the changes that were ever to take place 
in the characters of these proposed personages, and to all 
the causes and consequences of these changes. Of equal 
necessity, it must also have extended to all the sins that 
were ever to be committed by these personages and by 


THE CREATION. 


247 


tlieir descendants. When, therefore, with a full foreknowl¬ 
edge of all these things before him, God proceeded to make 
these personages, did he not, of necessity, make them 
specially for these very careers, these very changes, these 
very sins, etc.; and did he not render it utterly impossible 
for any of these things to be avoided? He could not possi¬ 
ble have foreknown that all these things certainly were to 
be, unless some power, capable of controlling all things, had 
unchangeably determined that they certainly should be. 
But, in all the universe, there was no such power except God 
himself. From this it is evident that, if God foreknew all 
the sins that were ever to be committed, he must himself 
have predetermined that those very sins should be com¬ 
mitted, and must have rendered it utterly impossible for 
them not to be committed. Here, then, God himself 
again reduces to the great arch-devil, the fountain of all 
evil. 

If, however, on the other hand, God did not foreknow 
what were to be the respective characters and careers of 
Adam Snake & Co., and of their decendants, was he not 
entirely too ignorant ever to be successful as a Creator? 
Is it any wonder that all the experiments—they could not 
be called anything else—that he ever made upon dirt 
proved utter failures? In any view of the case, is he not, 
of necessity, either through woful ignorance or deliberate 
design, the producer of all evil? 

Be all this as it may, however, when he saw that the 
devil had become evil, and that he was plotting the ruin 
of angels and of men, why did God permit him to accom¬ 
plish his evil purposes? Had he, or had he not, the will 
to prevent the accomplishment of those purposes ? If he 
had not the will to prevent their accomplishment, he must, 
of necessity, have been willing that they should be accom¬ 
plished. In this case, is he not particeps criminis with the 
devil in all the evil that has ever been done? 

If, however, he had the will to prevent the accomplish¬ 
ment of the evil purposes in question, then had he, or had 


248 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


he not, the power to do so ? If he had had the power to 
prevent their accomplishment, then it is evident that 
those evil purposes would never have been accomplished 
at all. But those purposes were accomplished; and this 
fact proves conclusively that he either willed their accom¬ 
plishment, or was unable to prevent it. If he willed it, 
then, as we have just seen, he was certainly particeps crim- 
inis. If he was unable to prevent it, was he not, and is 
he not still, a very weak God? Was not the devil then, 
and is he not still, the more powerful of the two, and is he 
not master of the situation? Would it not be prudent, 
then, to cultivate his satanic majesty’s favor a little more 
than we do, and not spend quite so much time and money 
upon a God who is unable to. help either himself or us ? 
The Bible teaches that there was once a war in heaven, 
and that the devil, with only one man to God’s two, came 
very near winning the victory. Admitting this to be a fact, 
may there not, some day, be another war in heaven, and 
may not the devil, who now, according to all orthodox 
accounts, has ten men to God’s one, be the victor? Would 
it not, at any rate, be prudent to provide against such a 
contingency ? 

Again, when God perceived that Adam, Snake & Co. 
were about to fall into sin, he necessarily either did, or did 
not, wdll their fall, and either had, or had not, the power 
to prevent it. Had he possessed both the will and the 
power to prevent it, then, of course, it would never have 
occurred at all. The fact, then, that Adam, Snake, & Co. 
did fall, is proof positive that he either willed their fall, or 
was too weak to prevent it. In the former case, what are 
we to say of his evident want of goodness ? In the latter 
case, what are we to say of his evident want of power ? If, 
as you teach, either from want of goodness or want of 
power, he utterly failed to preserve good one inexperienced 
snake, and two simple-minded country people, who were 
all of his owm manufacture, and all directly under his own 
control, can there be the slightest hope of his ever making 



THE CREATION. 


249 


good, and preserving them so, the countless millions of bad 
snakes and bad men who now demand his attention, and 
who are all under the devil’s control? Even with the aid 
of a million priests and a hundred million Bibles, is he not 
daily getting further and further behind with his work? 
You know that he is. Would it not be better, then, for 
him to transfer the whole business to his more enterpris¬ 
ing and more successful rival, the devil ? 

By strictly logical arguments, deduced from the testi¬ 
mony of the Bible itself, I have now fully demonstrated 
that the attributes ascribed to God by his worshipers are 
totally inconsistent with the known condition of things on 
earth. If he were infinite in goodness, he could not will the 
existence of sin and of sorrow. If he were infinite in 
power, these things could not exist contrary to his will. 
These things, however, do exist. Of necessity, therefore, 
he wants either the will or the power to prevent their ex¬ 
istence. In either case, he is a total failure. It may be, 
however, that, in his wonderful goodness, he keeps sin 
alive for the sole benefit of the priests, and disease alive 
for the sole benefit of the doctors, whose respective profes¬ 
sions would be gone if sin and disease were to cease among 
men. 

I have also proved that your attempt to lay all the re¬ 
sponsibility of evil upon the devil, is a vain and absurd 
subterfuge. Indeed, all of you who possess anything like 
a fair degree of intelligence know very well that you do 
not believe in the existence of any such personage as the 
devil. You know very well that you preach his devilship 
simply for money, or because you believe that the ignorant 
can be better controlled by the fear of this bugaboo than 
by any other means. Admitting, however, that there actu¬ 
ally is such a personage, who made him ? Who gives him 
all his power ? Who makes and sends him all his recruits? 
Who keeps him supplied with brimstone ? Is he anything 
more than a mere instrument in God’s hands? Can he, or 
does he, do anything of himself? And does the fact that 


250 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


God makes use of an instrument in the promotion of evil, 
render him any the less responsible for that evil? Should 
I deliberately form an instrument with which to slay my 
neighbor, and should I actually slay him with that instru¬ 
ment, would anyone think of acquitting me of all guilt, and 
of condemning the helpless instrument? 

The devil, however, does appear to possess wonderful 
powers. Indeed, God seems to have given to him more 
power than he retained for his own use. At any rate, in 
all the games they have hitherto played, the devil has uni¬ 
formly been the winner; and, in the games they are now 
playing, he seems, from all orthodox accounts, to be hav¬ 
ing a wonderful “run of luck.’-’ 

After they became rivals, God’s first move was to make 
hell, fill it with brimstone, set fire to it, and tumble the 
devil and all his followers headlong into it. The devil’s 
first move was to get right out again. This, he probably 
accomplished by dropping through, since hell, as you all 
know, has no bottom. God’s second move w r as to make 
himself a man and a woman to serve him. The devil’s 
second move was to thwart this little enterprise by induc¬ 
ing this primitive pair, andliearly all their descendants, to 
serve himself. After a few more unsuccessful moves, God 
seems to have pretty nearly given up the struggle. Indeed, 
for many thousands of years, he seems to have been in the 
devil’s service, doing very little besides making men, for 
the devil’s benefit, and sending them to hell. 

I also find that the Bible gives the devil a much better 
moral character than it gives God. This fact, I will fully 
prove in a future lecture. Wishing, therefore, to be on 
the better as well as the stronger side, I have espoused 
the devil’s cause, and have written a little book in defense 
of his character. No other man ever dared write such a 
book. By this act, I have come to stand in great favor 
with his sulphuric majesty, and hence can be of great ser¬ 
vice to my friends when they arrive in his kingdom. My 
orthodox friends, in particular, would do well to remember 


THE CREATION. 


251 


this fact. According to their own testimony concerning 
one another, most of them will ultimately land in hell. 
They will then stand greatly in need of the kind interces¬ 
sion of some one who has a good deal of influence at the 
brimstone headquarters. Should I not be in, therefore, 
when they arrive, let them inform the authorities that, on 
earth, they were warms friends of Col. Kelso. Upon mak¬ 
ing this announcement, they will be at once treated with 
the utmost courtesy, and provided for as their wants may 
demand. Let the priests, in particular, remember these 
instructions; otherwise, they are almost sure to be assigned 
to quarters uncomfortably warm. 

And now, in conclusion, I challenge any champion of 
the Bible to fairly meet, and successfully refute a single 
argument advanced by me in this entire analysis of the 
story of creation. My opponents should fairly meet my 
arguments, with better and stronger arguments, and not, 
as has hitherto been their wont, with persecutions and the 
calling of opprobrious names. My views are the result of 
long, honest, and thorough investigation. They are fully 
sustained by reason, science, and common sense, and no 
amount of persecution can ever compel me to abandon them. 

I am charged with pulling down and not building up. 
But what is it that I pull down? Truth cannot be pulled 
down; and error, no matter how old it may be, ought to be 
pulled down. The noxious weeds of error must be eradi¬ 
cated from the fruitful soil of the human mind, before the 
beautiful flowers of truth can flourish therein. 

It is true that I pull down; but it is not true that I do 
not also build up. As darkness can be removed only by be¬ 
ing driven out with light, so error can be removed only by 
being driven out with truth. In the place of every error, 
then, that I pull down, I build up a truth. And, except it 
be to the priests, is not the truth, that I build up, of more 
value than the error, that I pull down? When, for in¬ 
stance, by proving him to be a mere priestly invention, I 
take from you your God, or your devil, I do you a real 


252 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


service, and you have no right to demand of me a real 
value equal to the imaginary value which you have hith¬ 
erto attached to these entirely imaginary possessions. 


LECTURE EIGHTH. 

THE DELUGE. 

Next to the creation of the universe itself, the Deluge- 
is, undoubtedly, the most wonderful event of which we 
have any record. Of necessity, the account of this event,, 
given in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of Genesis, 
must be either true or false. If false, then the Bible, of 
which this false account is an essential part, is bound to be 
a false book; and the Christian Keligion, founded upon 
this false book, is bound to be a false religion. The story 
of the deluge, therefore, must be established as strictly 
true, or else the Christian Religion must stand exposed as 
a monstrous priestly imposition. 

In regard to the time at which the deluge occurred, 
there is a great difference of opinion among the various 
chronologists of the Bible. Most of them, however, place 
it from one thousand four hundred to two thousand years 
after the creation. For my purpose, it makes very little 
difference at what time it is assumed to have occurred. I 
expect to prove that no such deluge ever could, or ever did, 
occur at any time. 

God is said to have brought the deluge upon the earth 
for the purpose of destroying the human race, whom he 
had made in his own likeness and image, but whom, to his 
great chagrin, he found himself totally unable to control. 
Indeed, it is said that men, originally made of dirt, while 
under God’s own direct management, became~so dirty 
fellows jfchat he bitterly repented ever having made them 
at all. He therefore determined to destroy them by means- 



THE DELUGE. 


253 


of a general deluge. In order, however, to destroy, in 
this way, these his own vile images, he found it necessary 
to destroy also all the beasts, birds, insects, etc., except 
just enough for each kind to replenish the earth after the 
subsidence of the deluge. These he preserved alive in a 
large vessel called the ark. In this same vessel, he also 
saved eight human beings—eight of those impious wretches 
whom “ it grieved him at his heart ” that he had made. 
In saving these people, he evidently committed a very 
grave mistake. From this bad seed, he expected a good 
harvest. As a matter of course, he was disappointed. 
Since like inevitably produces its like, this bad seed pro¬ 
duced a new crop of men who have proved to be just as 
bad as the old, and who have, so to speak, kept him con¬ 
stantly in hot water. To keep even with them, however, 
and to solace his soured temper, he devotes a great portion 
of his time to the work of sending them to hell. 

In the seventh chapter of Genesis, we learn that, when 
Noah and his family, with their wonderful menagerie, were 
safe on board the ark, and were shut in by God himself, 
“ all the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and 
the windows of heaven were opened.” We also learn that, 
for forty days and forty nights, the waters continued to 
pour down, not from the clouds , but from heaven , through 
these ivindoivs , and to gush up from the great deep, through 
these fountains. We learn further, that these waters cov¬ 
ered “ all the high hills that were under the whole heaven,” 
and rose fifteen cubits above the tops of the highest mount¬ 
ains. We learn, still further, that, for one hundred and 
fifty days, the waters “ prevailed,” or remained stationary, 
at that immense height. By adding to these one hundred 
and fifty days, the forty days, during which the waters 
were accumulating, we have one hundred and ninety days; 
and this sum, taken from the entire time spent by Noah in 
the ark, leaves one hundred and seventy days as the time 
occupied by the waters in subsiding. This result we ob¬ 
tain by reckoning one entire Jewisli year of three hundred 



254 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


and fifty days plus ten days equals three hundred and sixty 
days as the entire time spent by Noah on board the ark. 
If, however, you insist upon having a year and ten days, 
as the year is now estimated, we will add fifteen days to 
the above amount. This gives us three hundred and 
seventy-five days as the entire time spent by Noah on 
board the ark, and one hundred and eighty-five days as the 
time occupied by the waters in subsiding. 

Since the waters covered the tops of the highest mount¬ 
ains, they must, of necessity, have arisen, in an unbroken 
body, all around the world, to a height of over twenty- 
nine thousand feet. To attain so vast a height in 
forty days required a daily -rise of seven hundred and 
twenty-five feet, or over thirty feet to the hour. This 
would indicate quite a brisk shower. Indeed, it is a well- 
known fact that the heaviest rainfalls known, in any part 
of the world, rarely exceed three inches in one day, and 
that they are then confined to very small portions of the 
earth’s surface. Besides this, the most careful experi¬ 
ments made by some of the ablest scientists of the world 
demonstrate the fact that, if the entire atmosphere encir¬ 
cling the globe were filled to saturation with moisture, and 
then were made to yield that moisture, all at one time, the 
result would be a sheet of water scarce five inches deep all 
around the world. 

It is evident, therefore, that the waters which came 
from above, on that memorable occasion, did not come 
from the earth’s atmosphere. Indeed, the Bible does not 
even intimate that those waters fell, in the form of rain, 
from the clouds. On the contrary, its puts this hypothe¬ 
sis entirely out of the question by declaring that those 
waters actually fell from “heaven,” through “windows,” 
which were “opened” for that purpose, and which were 
“stopped” when enough water had fallen. From this, it is 
clear that those waters came from those immense reser¬ 
voirs which, as we have elsewhere seen, were placed, on 
the second day of creation, “ above the firmament ” or solid 


THE DELUGE. 


255 


sky, whicli was called heaven, and into which, to keep 
them from falling, the sun, the moon, and the stars, were 
afterwards set. From the fact that, after enough water 
had been obtained, “ the fountains also of the deep, and 
the windows of heaven were stopped,” we learn that the 
44 great deep ” was still unexhausted, and that vast bodies 
of water, provided for the benefit of the earth, still re¬ 
mained in “ heaven,” “above the firmament,” and,of course, 
above the sun, the moon, and the stars. 

If the author of the language which I have just quoted, 
did not mean what he said, concerning the fountains of the 
great deep, . . . and the “ windows of heaven,” what 
did he mean? If the deluge itself was a reality, if the 
waters which composed it were real waters, what could 
those “fountains” have been but real openings, in the rea 1 
earth, through which these real waters gushed up from tin 
real “great deep,” upon which the earth really was 
“stretched out?” And what could those “windows of 
heaven” have been but real openings in the real solid sky 
or “ heaven” that stood, like an inverted bowl, above this 
real earth thus “ stretched out . . . above the waters ?” 

No one pretends that the clouds are “heaven” or that they 
have “ windows ” that can be “opened” or “ stopped” at 
pleasure. It is evident, therefore, that the author meant 
exactly what he said. It is also evident that what he said 
was, necessarily, either true or false. If true, then, of 
necessity, we really do have a solid sky standing above a 
flat and stationary earth. We really do have vast bodies 
of water above this solid sky, and, consequently, above the 
sun, the moon, and the stars, which, to keep them from 
falling, really are set or stuck, like nails, into this same 
solid sky. If false, then, of necessity, the Bible is a false 
book, and Christianity, a monstrous priest-invented impo¬ 
sition. 

The ancients, believing in the real existence of a “firma¬ 
ment” or a solid “heaven” standing above the earth, and 
in the real existence of ‘‘windows” in that “heaven,” were 


256 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


accustomed to speak of these things just as literally as we 
are accustomed to speak of our houses and of their win¬ 
dows. It was undoubtedly in this strictly literal sense 
that our author wrote. That I am correct in this conclu¬ 
sion, you will plainly perceive by carefully reading what is 
said of the “firmament” or “heaven,” in the first chapter 
of Genesis, and then what is said in the seventh and eighth 
chapters, of the opening and the closing of the “ windows 
of heaven.” In order, therefore, to retain your deluge, 
your Bible, your hell, your heaven, your God, your devil, 
etc., you are bound to retain also your flat and stationary 
earth, your solid sky or firmament, etc., with which all 
these things are inseparably connected. You are bound 
to utterly repudiate the demonstrations of science which, 
by entirely dissipating your solid sky or firmament, have 
clearly proved your stories of the creation and of the deluge 
to be totally false, and have effectually removed the only 
local heaven—the only celestial dwelling-place of God you 
ever had, or ever can have. 

When we thus perceive how absolutely indispensable 
to the religion upon which their financial interests de¬ 
pend, is this solid sky—this “ firmament ” or “ heaven ” of 
the Bible—we cease to wonder that the Christian priest¬ 
hood have always offered the most intensely bitter opposi¬ 
tion to every science the teachings of which were calcu¬ 
lated to interfere with this firmament or heaven, or with 
the flat and stationary earth over which it stood. We 
cease to wonder that they condemned the venerable Gali¬ 
leo to a dungeon, and the brave Bruno to the stake, for 
teaching sublime truths, which, if generally accepted, 
were bound to dissipate forever, from the minds of men, 
this palladium of the priesthood—this imaginary firma¬ 
ment or heaven of the Bible. 

Notwithstanding the desperate opposition of the 
church, however—notwithstanding the loss of the tens of 
thousands of brave scientists whose voices she has forever 
silenced in death, the truths of science have at last pre- 


THE DELUGE. 


257 


Tailed, and tlie firmament of tlie Bible, the heaven of the 
'Church, has totally vanished from among the things that 
be. Together with it, have also, of necessity, disappeared 
the windows which were in it, and the throne of God and 
the waters which were above it. The sun, the moon, and 
the stars, too, which, all at an equal distance from the 
earth, and at very short distances from one another, 
were set in this firmament, are now left, swinging free 
in space, at all imaginable distances from the earth, 
and from one another. Besides this, from being very 
small objects, all made on the same day, some six thousand 
years ago, and all destined, at no distant period in the 
future, to come rattling down, like so many figs, upon the 
earth, the stars have now become mighty worlds and sys¬ 
tems of worlds, many of them millions of times larger 
ihan the earth, differing countless millions of years in age, 
and destined to roll on, in their unspeakable glory, through 
All the incalculable eons of coming ages. 

As a matter of course, this magnificent triumph of the 
truths of science over the errors of the church is causing 
the priests a vast amount of trouble and anxiety. In 
order to retain their influence over the minds and the 
purses of the people, they must sustain the Bible; and, 
in order to sustain the Bible, they must find some equiva¬ 
lent substitute for the Bible’s evanished firmament or 
solid skThe finding of this substitute, however, proves 
to be a very difficult matter. In any case, they are bound 
to have large bodies of water, provided for the benefit of 
the earth, placed above this substitute. They are also bound 
io have the sun, the moon, and the stars placed in this 
substitute, and, consequently, between these waters and 
the earth. 

As I have elsewhere said, some of these hard-pressed 
priests assume that the firmament was, and still is, simply 
that portion of the atmosphere which intervenes between 
the earth and the clouds. On this assumption, the clouds 
are made to represent “ the waters which were above the 


258 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


firmament.” But “ God called tlie firmament heaven,” and 
established his throne upon it. And is heaven nothing 
more than this lower portion of the atmosphere ? Is it 
upon nothing but this that God’s throne is established ? 
Is it to nothing but this, that Christians expect to go, when 
they die? We are in this, already ; but are we in heaven? 
Besides this, what of the sun, the moon, and the stars? 
“ God set them in the firmament;” not beyond it. But 
did he ever set them in, and not beyond, this lower por¬ 
tion of the atmosphere? In addition to all this, the fir¬ 
mament was not created till the second day, or secondary 
geological epoch of creation. And was not the lower por¬ 
tion of the atmosphere created till that time? Is not this 
portion inseparably combined with all the balance of the 
atmosphere ? And must not this portion have been created 
at the same time with the balance ? Could there have 
been, during a whole day, or a whole geological epoch, a 
perfect vacuum, all around the world, in the space now 
occupied by this lower portion of the atmosphere ? Finally, 
it took God an entire day, or geological epoch, to create 
the firmament. And is it at all reasonable to hold that 
the making of this portion of the atmosphere required as 
much time as did the making of the sun, the moon, and 
the stars? Do you not clearly see that this assumption is 
totally untenable ? Better cling to your old Bible firma¬ 
ment, or solid sky, placed, like an inverted bowl, over a flat 
and stationary earth. If you make any concessions to the 
truths of science, your trade or profession, now so lucra¬ 
tive, will soon be utterly destroyed. “A word to the 
wise,” etc. 

As I have also said elsewhere, others of our hard-pressed 
priests assume that, by the word firmament, the writers of 
the Bible meant nothing more than the illimitable expanse 
of space that surrounds the earth on all sides. This mean¬ 
ing is given in the margin of the Accepted Version. The 
Douay or Catholic Bible also gives it in a note ; while the 
Mormons use the word expanse, in the text itself, instead 


THE DELUGE. 


259 


of the word firmament. From certain points of view, this 
assumption, like the one we have just been considering, at 
firstsight, appears somewhat plausible, and very conven¬ 
ient. It gives God an abundance of room in which to set 
the sun, the moon, and the stars. For this purpose, it is 
all that could be desired. But what of the upper waters ? 
They were placed “above the firmament,” not in it. In¬ 
deed, the firmament was made expressly for the purpose of 
keeping these waters permanently separated “from the 
waters which were under the firmament.” These upper 
waters, too, being provided for the sole benefit of the 
earth, could not have been placed at any very great dis¬ 
tance from her. Besides this, they could be made to pour 
down upon the earth only through openings, in the firma¬ 
ment, called “the windows of heaven.” At the pleasure of 
God, who dwelt up there, these windows could be so 
“opened” or “stopped” as to give the earth just so much 
water as he desired her to have. But are there any such 
bodies of water, provided for the sole benefit of the earth, 
entirely above or beyond the illimitable expanse of space ? 
And are there any such windows in that expanse? 

“And God called the firmament heaven.” As we learn 
from various other passages, some of which I noticed in my 
last lecture, this heaven rested upon pillars or other sub¬ 
stantial foundations; and was itself the firm foundation upon 
which God erected his throne. But is heaven nothing 
more than an illimitable expanse of space? Does God’s 
throne rest upon nothing more substantial than this? 
Does this expanse rest upon pillars or other material 
foundations? Do Christians expect, at death, to simply go 
out into an illimitable expanse of space? Are we not 
already as much in this expanse—in this heaven, if you 
please, as we ever possibly can be ? 

Besides all this, the firmament was a manufactured ob¬ 
ject; something that God spent a whole day, or a whole 
geological epoch, in making; something that had no exist¬ 
ence till it was thus made ; something, too, that was made 


260 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


expressly to permanently divide “tlie waters which were 
under the firmament from the waters which were above 
the firmament.” Could all this be true of illimitable space 
or expansion? Is it a manufactured object? Was it made 
expressly for the purpose of dividing “ the waters which 
were under” it “from the waters which were above” it? 
Could these two divisions of water have been both entirely 
outside of space ? If not, could the one have been “ under ” 
it, and the other “above” it? Could space have been 
totally absent from the universe—totally non-existent till 
the secondary period of creation? Could the earth, could 
God, could anything have existed, without space to exist 
in? Is not space, from its very nature, utterly incapable 
of ever having been absent or non-existent? Is it not 
clear, therefore, that, by the word firmament, the writers 
of the Bible did not mean mere space or expansion? Is it 
not clear that they meant precisely what they said, a rakia 
t>r firmament; something calculated to render firm what¬ 
ever was established upon it; something capable of sus¬ 
taining the enormous weight of the vast bodies of water 
which were placed above it, and of all the heavenly bodies 
that were set in it; something from which all the stars could 
be shaken, and made to come rattling down, like so many 
figs, upon the earth; something, like sheet metal, capable 
of being melted or “ dissolved ” by heat; something capa¬ 
ble of growing “ old as a garment,” and of being “ rolled 
together as a scroll” and “taken away?” If, then, there 
be no such firmament, no such solid structure, resting, 
like an inverted bowl, over a flat and stationary earth, is 
not the story of the deluge, as well as that of the creation, 
proved to be necessarily false ? Is not the Bible, also, of 
which these false stories are essential parts, proved to be, of 
necessity, a false book? And is not Christianity, founded 
as it is upon this false book, proved to be, of necessity, a 
monstrous imposition ? 

So long as their firmament remained intact, the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible derived a great portion of the waters of 


THE DELUGE. 


261 


the deluge from its inexhaustible stores. Science, how¬ 
ever, having effectually dissipated that firmament, with its 
immense reservoirs of water, and having also established 
the fact that no considerable portion of the waters of such 
a deluge could ever have come from the atmosphere, these 
champions are compelled now to derive those waters al¬ 
most entirely from that other assumed source of supply, 
the “ fountains of the great deep.” For a long time, these 
fountains afforded all the water that was needed for that 
wonderful deluge. The Hebrews, like nearly all other na¬ 
tions and tribes of antiquity, believed that the earth was 
spread out upon the waters of what they called the “ great 
deep.” “ To him that stretched out the earth above the 
waters.” “For he hath founded it upon the seas, and 
established it upon the floods.” These, and many other 
similar passages, show the ideas entertained of the earth 
by the writers of the Bible. These writers, therefore, had 
no difficulty in having water enough for the deluge gush 
up, through breaks or fountains in the earth, from the 
“ great deep,” upon which the earth was thus “ stretched 
out.” 

Meddlesome infidel science, however, not willing to 
tolerate error even for the benefit of God’s mighty hosts of 
pampered, bigoted, and worse than useless priests, has 
again interfered with the means by which these proverbi¬ 
ally cunning and selfish gentlemen manage to maintain 
their wonderful and despotic influence over the minds of 
the too credulous masses, and to draw their unearned sala¬ 
ries, for which alone they principally labor. This time, 
science has changed the Bible’s little flat and stationary 
earth, “ stretched out above the waters,” into the modern 
astronomer’s grand and glorious globe, revolving, with in¬ 
conceivable velocity, through the trackless regions of un¬ 
measured space. This wonderful triumph of truth lias 
compelled the champions of the Bible to relocate their 
“ great deep; ” to remove it from under and around the 
earth, where the Bible clearly locates it, and to place it in 


262 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


great cavities inside of the earth. By thus changing the 
location of their “great deep,” these champions directly 
contradict the plainest teachings of the Bible on this sub¬ 
ject. For this, however, we need not blame them very 
much, since they do not themselves believe the teachings 
of the Bible which they thus contradict, and since, by this 
subterfuge, they are enabled a little longer, without honest 
labor, to obtain the means of living. 

The great Commentator, Dr. Clarke, says : “ It appears 
that an immense quantity of water occupied the center of 
the antediluvian earth; and as this burst forth by the 
order of God, the circumambient strata must sink in 
order to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the elevated 
waters.” The learned Doctor does not tell us why “it ap¬ 
pears that an immense quantity of water ” once thus oc¬ 
cupied the center of the earth ; nor does he tell us to whom 
it appears that such was the fact. We know very well, 
however, that, to no scientist, of the present time, does it 
appear that the center of the earth was ever thus occupied. 
We cannot, in all nature, discover the slightest trace of 
any such former condition. Indeed, nearly all scientists 
now agree that the earth is of igneous, and not of aqueous 
formation. Driven to desperation, however, by the de¬ 
velopments of science, the champions of the Bible are 
willing to resort to any assumption whatever, no matter 
how unscientific and absurd it may be, if it only tends to 
aid them in their efforts to extricate this monstrous story 
of the deluge from the extremely grave difficulties with 
which it is surrounded. To these hard-pressed champions 
of the Bible, therefore, and to them alone, does it appear 
that the earth’s center was ever filled with water. Could 
these men, in any other way, find water enough to consti¬ 
tute their deluge, do you suppose that they would ever 
think of resorting to so unwarrantable an assumption? 
Is not the making of this assumption clearly an act of des¬ 
peration ? And of what avail can it be to their cause ? 

To the intense disgust and consternation of the priest- 


THE DELUGE. 


263 


hood, who make the retailing of theology a very lucrative 
business, science has now demonstrated the fact that water 
enough to constitute the deluge in question could no more 
have been obtained from the interior of the globe, as assumed 
by Clarke and others, than it could have been, as plainly 
taught by the Bible, from the upper side of a solid sky, or 
from the under side of a flat and stationary earth. The 
subterranean cavities would have had to be immense to 
furnish a body of water over five and one-lialf miles deep 
all around the world, and then have so much still remain¬ 
ing in them that their outlets had to be “ stopped,” and 
their further discharge of water thus “ restrained.” These 
cavities, must, of necessity, have extended to a depth of 
many miles from the earth’s surface, if not, as assumed by 
Dr. Clarke, to her very center. It is now a well-known 
fact, however, that, after an additional cooling of over 
four thousand years, the internal heat of the earth is 
so great that, at the comparatively small depth of two 
miles, water cannot exist. It is evident, therefore, that no 
such bodies of water as those above assumed ever did 
exist in the interior of the earth. Indeed, we might just 
as well contradict the Bible’s story of the deluge, in toto, 
as to contradict that portion of it which relates to the 
sources whence the waters of that deluge were obtained. 
“ And the earth was without form, and void ; and darkness 
was upon the face of the deep : and the Spirit of God 
moved upon the face of the waters ” (Gen. i, 2). Here 
the “ deep,” or the “ great deep,” as it is sometimes called, 
so far from filling the center of the earth, certainly covered 
her surface. So far from containing the “ great deep,” in 
her own center, the earth was herself contained in the 
“great deep.” “And God said, Let the waters under the 
heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the 
dry land appear : and it was so. And God called the dry 
land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters 
called he Seas” (Gen. i, 9, 10). Can any intelligent person 
believe the “ one place,” into which all these waters of the 


264 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


“ great deep ” were “ gathered together,” was the center of 
the earth? Did not the earth, on the contrary, rise np, 
like a previously sunken body, and rest upon the surface 
of the “ great deep,” with its waters under her, and all 
around her edges ? Is she not, everywhere in the Bible, 
represented as occupying this position, and as being sus¬ 
tained in it upon pillars that extend down into the waters 
of the “great deep?” 

Admitting, however, that the subterranean bodies of 
water, assumed by Dr. Clarke and others, did exist, and 
that they did “burst forth by the order of God,” what 
must have been the result? The cavities, from which they 
came, having been filled with earth, by the sinking of the 
“ circumambient strata,” could not, of course, ever receive 
back again the waters which they had sent forth. Besides 
this, the sinking of the “circumambient strata” would 
evidently leave a depression, on the surface of the earth, 
just equal to the cavity below, which they had filled by 
sinking. When expelled from the cavity below, therefore,, 
the waters would simply settle into these external depres¬ 
sions, and would stand at no greater height than had 
stood the “circumambient strata,” when occupying the 
same position. The earth and the water would merely 
have exchanged places. Together, they would still have 
occupied the same space that they occupied before this 
exchange took place. The general surface of the earth, 
therefore, would evidently not have been affected* in the 
least, by this exchange. No general deluge, then, could 
have been effected in this way. Only those portions of 
land which sunk, could have been deluged by this method, 
and over those portions seas would have remained. 

As we have already seen, the waters of the deluge 
could never have gone back again into the subterranean 
cavities whence they had come. What, then, became of 
them, when God wished the deluge to subside? Dr. 
Clarke does not satisfactorily answer this question. In¬ 
deed, he seems to be in a condition similar to that of tho 


THE DELUGE. 


265 


man who drew an elephant in a lottery. He has a mon¬ 
strous deluge upon his hands, and does not know what to 
do with it. He says that the air took up, in the form of 
vapor, all the water that it had contributed to the deluge. 
The balance of the water, he says, was gradually drawn off 
into openings, which were made for it, and which now 
constitute seas and gulfs. He fails to tell us, however, who 
made these openings, how he made them, when he made 
them, or where he made them. He also fails to tell us 
what occupied these openings during the deluge. Of ne¬ 
cessity, they must have been occupied, during that time, by 
something. If with water, how could more water, and 
especially a body over five and one-half miles deep, and 
extending over the entire surface of the globe, have been 
drawn off into them ? Which of the seas and gulfs con¬ 
tain the hundredth part of that amount of water ? If, dur¬ 
ing the time in question, those openings were still filled 
with earth, what became of that earth when it was scooped 
out ? There must have been enough of it to make a stra¬ 
tum five and one-half miles deep over the entire surface of 
the globe. Where is it now? 

Besides all these things, as I have already shown, God 
collected all the waters which were under the heaven, into 
one place, and called this general collection of waters by 
the general name of seas. Since these seas contained all 
the water there was under the heaven, it must, of neces¬ 
sity, have been from them that all the terrestrial portion 
of the water of the deluge was derived. But how could 
the water of these seas have been made to rise, in an un¬ 
broken mass, five and one-lialf miles above their usual 
level, all over the face of the globe ? And since, before the 
deluge, there were seas enough to contain all the waters 
there were under the heaven, why did any more seas have 
to be scooped out, at the close of the deluge ? Was there 
any more water then than there was before? 

I am aware that many of the champions of the Bible 
attempt to evade some of the difficulties which I have 


266 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


pointed out, by assuming that the deluge was only partial 
—that it extended only over the small portion of Asia 
which is supposed to have been, at that time, inhabited. 
The Bible, however, says: “ And all flesh died that moved 
upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, 
and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, 
and every man. All in whose nostrils was the breath of 
life, of all that was in the dry land, died.” Could a par¬ 
tial deluge have accomplished these general results ? The 
Bible also says that “ all the high hills, that were under 
the whole heaven , were covered.” Did not the “whole 
heaven,” of necessity, extend over the ivliole earth? If it 
did, were not “ all the high hills ” of the whole earth cov¬ 
ered, and was not the deluge, of necessity, a general one? 
The Bible says, further, that “ the mountains were cov¬ 
ered.” Some of the highest mountains of the world are 
in the very part of Asia in which this partial deluge is said 
to have taken place. And could the waters have been so 
piled up, on a small area of country, as to cover these 
mountains? Would not these waters have spread out, 
and found their level around the whole world ? And would 
not this spreading out of the waters have made the deluge 
a general one ? Besides this, the Bible still further says 
that “ the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seven¬ 
teenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. 
And the waters decreased continually until the tenth 
month: in the tenth month, on the first days of the month, 
were the tops of the mountains seen. From this we learn 
that the waters had to decrease continually, for two and a 
half months, before the tops of the mountains of Ararat 
became visible. When we consider the great height of 
Ararat—15,000 feet—we certainly have indicated here a 
height of water far too great not to have produced a gen¬ 
eral deluge. Did not the author of the story, then, cer¬ 
tainly mean to teach a general deluge ? Do not those 
persons plainly contradict him who contend that the del¬ 
uge was only a partial one ? Finally, have I not clearly 


THE DELUGE. 


267 


proved that no such deluge was ever possible, and that, 
consequently, the whole story is nothing more than a base¬ 
less fabrication. 

We will now notice the ark. This is said to have been 
three hundred cubits in length, fifty cubits in width, and 
thirty cubits in height. Allowing the cubit to have con¬ 
tained twenty-two inches, a little more than has ever been 
claimed for it, these dimensions give us, in round numbers, 
as the ark’s entire contents, one hundred thousand cubic 
yards. This result we obtain by assuming that, through¬ 
out its entire length, the ark was uniform in both its width 
and its height. This assumption, however, we cannot 
reasonably make. To do so would be to give the ark the 
form of a monstrous goods box—the very worst form it 
could possibly have. In order to resist the mighty pres¬ 
sure of the turbid waters, into which, with so immense a 
cargo, it must have been deeply sunk, and the awful buf¬ 
ferings of the unimpeded billows, the general form of its 
exterior must have been more or less convex. Giving it 
this form would greatly reduce its containing capacity. Giv¬ 
ing the champions of the Bible all they can possibly ask, 
however, in this case, as we did in the case of the length 
of the cubit, we will allow that the ark contained one hun¬ 
dred thousand cubic yards. 

At the very least, one-fifth of this space would be occu¬ 
pied by the beams, the floor, the partitions, etc., of the ark 
itself; by the materials of which the stalls, the cages, the 
feed-boxes, etc., were composed; and by the necessary 
gangways. This reduces our available space to eighty 
thousand cubic yards. Into this space, we must crowd two 
each of every species of insect, reptile, and unclean beast, 
and seven each of every species of bird and clean beast. 
For all of these, we must also furnish a sufficient quantity 
of proper food to last from one to two years. We must 
also furnish a sufficient quantity of fresh water to last 
them all a little over one year. And for all these things, 


268 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


as well as for the vast accumulations of filth, we must find 
room in the ark. 

The ark was three stories high; and, after deducting 
the space necessarily occupied by the partitions, the gang¬ 
ways, etc., there would remain, as standing-room, on each 
floor, about four thousand square yards. Of these three 
stories, each about eighteen feet in height, the first and 
the second are usually assigned to the beasts and their 
food; the third, to the birds and the human beings and 
their food. Where the reptiles and the insects and their 
food were placed, we are not informed. 

There are, undoubtedly, thousands of species of living 
creatures that are still unknown to the naturalist. Omit¬ 
ting all of these, we will base our calculations upon those- 
species only that are known. Having the number of spe¬ 
cies, and knowing the number of each species that were* 
taken, we obtain, approximately at least, the entire num¬ 
ber that must have been provided for on board the ark. 
In this way, we obtain at least five thousand beasts, one- 
thousand serpents, crocodiles, etc., ten thousand land 
snails, forty-three thousand birds, one million five hundred 
thousand insects. For all of this immense number of liv¬ 
ing creatures, many of them of monstrous size, and many 
others entirely invisible to the naked eye, there must, of 
necessity, have been provided, in the ark, suitable stalls, 
cells, cages, etc., together with a sufficient quantity of 
proper nourishment. 

Knowing, approximately, the numbers and the kinds of 
living creatures that must have been taken; knowing, 
also, the kind and the quantity of food required by each; 
and knowing, finally, the time that must have elapsed 
before new crops of food could have grown, after the del¬ 
uge, we find that the herbivori alone would have required, 
at the very least, fifty thousand cubic yards of well-pressed 
hay. This leaves us only thirty thousand cubic yards for 
all other purposes. In the same way, we find that the 
carnivori would have required at least thirty thousand 


THE DELUGE. 


269 


sheep; and that these sheep, before being killed and eaten, 
would have required at least thirty thousand cubic yards 
of hay. This hay would fill all the room in the ark not 
already filled with hay. We also find that there must 
have been required at least one thousand tons of various 
kinds of grain and seeds. All of this, each kind being, of 
necessity, kept in a separate box, must have required a 
vast amount of store room. Besides all these things, we 
find that the wants of this entire menagerie would have 
required at least ten thousand hogsheads of fresh water, 
and this would have required a vast amount of store room. 
We find, too, that many beasts, birds, and reptiles feed 
almost exclusively upon fresh fish. To supply the wants 
of these, must have involved the necessity of having, on 
board the ark, immense fisli tanks, the water of which must 
have been frequently changed. We find, also, that many 
other beasts, birds, etc., feed almost exclusively upon liv¬ 
ing insects. To supply the wants of these, millions of 
living insects, of all conceivable kinds, must have been 
prepared, and furnished with proper food until they were 
eaten. We find, further, that many other beasts, birds, 
etc., feed almost exclusively upon fresh fruits; and the 
wants of these must have involved the necessity of having, 
on board the ark, immense orchards and fruit gardens. 
Indeed, we find that almost every tree and plant in exist¬ 
ence, in its green state, constitutes the exclusive food of 
from one to one hundred species of living creatures. In 
order, therefore, to preserve these creatures, it was abso¬ 
lutely necessary to have growing upon the ark an abun¬ 
dance of all the different kinds of trees, plants, shrubs, etc., 
of the w r orld. These would have required extensive gar¬ 
dens, orchards, and groves, all well watered, cultivated, 
and warmed and lighted by the sun. Some of these trees, 
plants, etc., could grow only on low and marshy ground; 
others only on high and rocky ground; others still, only 
on loose and sandy ground. Besides this, some would 
require an arctic, some a temperate, and some a tropical 


270 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


climate. All the different varieties, both of soil and of 
climate, must have been present in the ark. Indeed, the 
living creatures themselves would have required all these 
varieties of climate, if not of soil. Those from the polar 
regions would have required vast stores of ice to keep 
them cool. Those from the tropics would have required 
an increase of heat to keep them warm. But how could 
all these things have been provided upon the ark, already 
filled with the single article of hay? And where could 
room have possibly been found for the almost countless 
numbers of living creatures, ancl for the ten thousand tons 
or more of filth that must finally have accumulated? Be¬ 
sides all these things, it is a well-known fact, that many 
kinds of insects, such as bees and ants, can live only in 
colonies. How, then, for instance, did Noah’s single pair 
of bees survive and multiply ? 

When all things were ready, God himself removed the 
ark’s staging, and closed the great outer door. Then, at 
once, all within the ark was enwrapped in impenetrable 
darkness. It is true that, in the top of the ark, there was 
one window twenty-two inches square. This extremely 
small window, however, does not appear to have been 
opened till after the expiration of several months. Indeed, 
it could not have been opened until after the expiration of 
the forty days during which the waters “from heaven” 
were pouring down in torrents so terrific that the ark 
would have been filled with water had that window been 
left open. In fact, that window seems to have been in¬ 
tended simply as a place from which Noah could occasion¬ 
ally look out, and not as a means of either lighting or ven¬ 
tilating the interior of the ark. After it was opened, it 
could have lighted and ventilated only a very small portion 
of the upper part of the ark. All the other portions must, 
of necessity, have remained, during the whole year, in 
total darkness. How could plants and animals have lived 
so long without a ray of light, and how could Noah and 


THE DELUGE. 


271 


his family have managed to go about and feed and clean 
after so many ravenous beasts, venomous reptiles, etc.? 

Besides this, since the entire ark was pitched, within 
and without, to make it perfectly tight, there could have 
been no possible avenue either for the entrance of fresh 
air, or for the escape of the foul and deadly fumes which, 
in a few hours, must, of necessity, have filled the entire 
interior of the ark. Only the most hardy animals could 
have survived, for even one day, the indescribable horrors 
of so hideous and so deadly a den. How, then, could the 
most delicate creatures have all survived, without the loss 
of cne, during an entire year, in the horrors of such a hell ? 

I am aware that certain champions of the Bible attempt 
to evade these difficulties by assuming that, “all out of 
nothing,” God made both light and fresh air in the ark, or 
else miraculously so modified the natures of the living 
creatures, that, for an entire year, they were enabled to 
live without either light or fresh air. This assumption, 
however, is utterly unwarrantable, and hence, as an argu¬ 
ment, totally worthless. Had so remarkable a miracle 
been performed, it would certainly have been noticed in 
the Bible. As it is, however, the Bible does not even inti¬ 
mate that there was anything of a miraculous nature con¬ 
nected with any part of the deluge; and these men have no 
right to assume miracles when the Bible does not claim 
them. They might just as well assume that God so modi¬ 
fied the natures of all those creatures that, for an entire 
year, they were enabled to live under water. Indeed, to 
have enabled them to live a year under water, would have 
required no greater miracle than would have been required 
to enable them to live, for the same length of time, with¬ 
out light or fresh air, in that ark. Since we must assume 
something contrary to the plain teachings of the Bible, 
why not, therefore, assume that God did preserve all those 
creatures alive under water? By this assumption, without 
requiring God to perform any greater miracle, we escape 


272 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


all the difficulties connected with the ark method of saving 
them. 

Of the eight persons on board the ark, each one must 
have had to feed, water, and clean after at least six hun¬ 
dred and twenty-five beasts, one hundred and twenty-five 
reptiles, one thousand two hundred and fifty land snails, 
five thousand three hundred and seventy-five birds, and 
one hundred and eighty-seven thousand five hundred in¬ 
sects, to say nothing of the thirty thousand sheep, or their 
equivalent, and the millions of insects which must have 
been provided as food for other creatures, and which, until 
eaten, must have also required food and attention. All 
this work, too, had to be performed in total darkness, or 
by torch-light, and amid the most horribly offensive and 
deadly gases. To anyone who dares reason upon anything 
connected with the Bible, it must be evident that no eight 
persons ever could, or ever did, perform all the labor nec¬ 
essarily connected with so monstrous a menagerie. In¬ 
deed, I believe that every person who has ever had the 
care of a large number of different kinds of beasts, birds, 
insects, and reptiles, will agree that I am not at all extrava¬ 
gant in my estimate, when I say that the proper care of so 
prodigious, and so diversified a collection, would have re¬ 
quired the services of eight hundred, instead of only eight, 
persons. 

In our estimate, we have omitted many species of 
water fowls, and other aquatic creatures, which, perhaps, 
might have survived, for a short time, either swimming 
upon the surface of the water, or resting upon masses of 
drift-wood. All these creatures, however, would soon 
have perished for want of fresh water to drink. The salt 
water of the whole world, being intermingled with the 
fresh, must have rendered the entire mass totally unfit 
for drinking. No water-drinking animal, therefore, even 
though its home be in the sea, could ever have survived 
such a deluge. Even the fishes would generally have 
perished. By their saltness, the mixed waters would have 




THE DELUGE. 


273 


■destroyed most of the fresli-water fishes; and, by their 
freshness, would have destroyed most of the salt-water 
fishes. Besides this, the oysters and other sliell-fisli that 
live only in comparatively shallow waters, would have 
perished at once when placed, as they must have been, at 
a depth of several miles. 

All the trees, and almost everything else belonging to 
the vegetable kingdom, submerged, for a year, in brackish 
waters, must, inevitably, have perished; and many months, 
and, in some cases, many years, must have elapsed, after 
the subsidence of the deluge, before new crops of the 
various grains, grasses, fruits, etc., could have been pro¬ 
duced from the seed. How, then, did Noah and his won¬ 
derful menagerie manage to subsist while the new crops 
were growing ? How did the carnivori, in particular, man¬ 
age to subsist? Oould these ravenous creatures have ob¬ 
tained even one “ good square meal,” until time for increase 
had been given to those beasts, birds, etc., upon which 
they were wont to feed? 

Besides all these utterly insurmountable difficulties, 
how were these various living creatures, and the appropri¬ 
ate food for each kind, brought together into the ark ? In 
regard to this matter, there are only three possible hy¬ 
potheses. The first of these is, that the various kinds of 
beasts, birds, etc., being inspired of God so to do, of their 
own accord, came together, all at the right time, and en¬ 
tered the ark; each one, by inspiration, knowing, and en¬ 
tering into, the very stall, cage, or cell that had been pre¬ 
pared for it. The second is, that all these creatures were 
captured and brought into the ark by Noah himself, or by 
men in his employ. The third is, that they were all 
miraculously carried to the ark, through the air, by God 
himself or his angels. The correctness of both the first 
and the second of these hypotheses can be established by 
the Bible. We will briefly examine all three of them. 

In Gen. vi, 20, we read: “ Of fowls after their kind, and 
of cattle after their kind, of every creeping thing of the 


274 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


earth after his kind; two of every sort shall come unto 
thee, to keep them alive.” Also in Gen. vii, 7-9, we read • 
“And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his 
sons’ wives with him, into the ark, because of the waters 
of the flood. Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not 
clean, and of fowls, and of everything that creepeth upon 
the earth, there went in two and two unto Noah into the 
ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded 
Noah.” From these passages, it is evident that just two, 
a male and a female, of every species of animals, being, of 
course, inspired of God so to do, came of themselves “ unto 
Noah,” that he might “ keep them alive,” and, of them¬ 
selves, “ went in unto ” him “ into the ark,” where he 
already was, at the time of their arrival. Had God in¬ 
tended that they should be captured and brought together, 
he ceTtainly would not have said of them that they shall 
“come unto thee, to keep them alive.” So also, if they had 
been taken by force into the ark, it certainly could not 
have been said of them that they “ went in unto Noah into 
ark.” But how did they manage, of themselves, all at the 
right time, to reach the ark ? 

It is a well-known fact, that, of all animals, nearly every 
species is confined to some particular region or locality. 
It is also a well-known fact that, in a vast number of 
instances, the essential food of an animal is confined to 
the same locality in which the animal itself is found. In¬ 
deed, almost every islet of the sea, and almost every 
square mile of the land surface of the earth, is known to 
have some kind of animal, and some kind of food, not 
found anywhere else. In order, therefore, to reach the 
ark, many of those animals must have traveled from the 
opposite side of the earth, twelve thousand miles or more, 
and from beyond the oceans. The question, then, nat¬ 
urally arises, how did they manage to perform this jour¬ 
ney? Did they wade, swim, or ferry the oceans? Of 
necessity, all that could not fly must have crossed them 
in one of these three ways. What did they do for food on 


THE DELUGE. 


275 


their way to the ark, and on their return journey, after the 
subsidence of the deluge? And how did Noali manage to 
prepare sustenance, on board the ark, for those animals 
whose food was to be found only in the distant, and often 
inaccessible, regions whence they themselves had come? 
For instance, there are several species of land snails 
found only in the vicinity of Cape Horn. How did these 
manage to reach the ark; and to reach it, too, at the very 
moment they were wanted? Did they, both in going and 
returning, cross the ocean in any of the three ways above 
mentioned? If not, must they not, of necessity, have 
traveled, on foot, throughout the entire length of the 
American Continent, crossed Behring’s Strait on the ice,, 
and then made their way down, throughout the greatest 
length of Asia, crossing vast deserts, and wading, swimming, 
or ferrying a thousand streams that lay in their route ? At 
their rate of travel, would not such a journey, over fifteen 
thousand miles, have required at least ten thousand 
years? Would they not, therefore, have had to start over 
eight thousand years before the creation? And would 
they not now, on their return journey, be still a sis thou¬ 
sand years’ walk from their old home ? So, also, the 
sloths of South America, to reach the ark in the same 
way, would have required several centuries. Besides this, 
since neither the snails nor the sloths could have found 
food on any considerable portion of their route, it is 
evident that, of necessity, they must have fasted during 
nearly the whole of the round trip. In their journeyings 
to and from the ark, similar insurmountable difficulties 
would have attended the greater portion of all the other 
animals. The famous menagerie, therefore, of the firm of 
Noah & Sons, could not possibly have been a self-collected 
assemblage. We are bound, therefore, to resort to one or 
the other of the only two remaining possible hypotheses 
on which that collection could have been made. In other 
words, we must either have Noah capture all the animals, 
and, by force, bring them into the ark, or else have them 


276 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


miraculously brought thither, through the air, by God him¬ 
self\ or his angels. 

In Gen. vi, 19-21, we read: “ And of every living thing, 
of all flesh, two of every sort, shalt thou bring into the 
ark, to keep them alive with thee; they shall be male and 
female. And take thou unto thee of all the food that is 
eaten; and thou shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be food 
for thee, and for them.” In Gen. vii, 2, 3, we also read: 
“ Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, 
the male and his female; and of beasts that are not clean 
bjr twos, the male and his female. Of fowls also of the 
air by sevens, the male and the female; to keep seed alive 
upon the face of all the earth.” As the passages which I 
previously quoted clearly prove that, of their own accord , 
the animals all came together, and voluntarily “ went in two 
and two unto Noah into the ark,” so these latter passages, 
just as clearly, prove that they did nothing of the kind; 
that Noah had to “take” or capture them, and “bring” 
them “ into the ark,” just as he had to “ take ” and “ bring 
into the ark ... of all food that is eaten.” Indeed, 
a great portion of this food consisted of living creatures. 
But how did Noah manage to do all of this? And why 
was he required to take in all the fowls and all the clean 
beasts by “ sevens ,” when, in the passages previously 
quoted, these creatures, like all the others, were to come 
in only by “twos?” 

From the fact that God wished to “ keep seed alive 
upon the face of all the earth,” it is evident that, at the 
time he expressed this wish, there was seed actually living 
“ upon the face of all the earth.” Had any portions of the 
earth been destitute of seed, he could not possibly have 
“ kept ” or continued seed alive in those portions. In order, 
therefore, to “ take ” or capture, and to “ bring into the 
ark,” some of every species of this seed, as well as some 
of “ all food that is eaten,” Noah must, of necessity, have 
gone, or sent, to every portion of “ the face of all the 
earth.” If God did not intend that Noah actually should 


THE DELUGE. 


277 


“ take of every living thing of all flesh, two of every sort 
. . . to keep seed alive on all the earth,” why did he 

command him to do this? Why did he so carefully specify 
“ the face of all the earth,” if he meant only a small por¬ 
tion of it? And if he meant, as he formerly declared that 
he did, for the animals to come into the ark, of their own 
accord, why did he so strictly command Noah to “take” 
them, to count them, and to exarnine their sex , so as to have 
the right number of every species, and of each sex ? If, 
of their own accord, the animals had come together and 
entered the ark, the right number of every species, and of 
each sex, would, undoubtedly, have presented themselves. 
They certainly neither could, nor would, have all assem¬ 
bled thus, at one time, and in one place, without being in¬ 
spired of God to do so; and we cannot conceive that he 
would thus have inspired either a greater or a less num¬ 
ber, of every species and each sex, than were necessary. 
So, if God himself had miraculously brought them to¬ 
gether, through the air, he would, undoubtedly, have 
brought the right number of every species, and of each 
sex. In neither of these cases would Noah have had to 
“ take ” them, count them, examine their sex, and “ bring ” 
them “into the ark.” It is evident, therefore, that Noah 
himself took them, from the places in which they were 
severally to be found, and brought them, nolens volens, into 
the ark, or had all this done by his agents. It is equally 
evident, also, that he took of “ all food that is eaten ”— 
much of it consisting of living creatures of various kinds 
—from the various places in which it was to be found, 
“ upon the face of all the earth,” and brought it into the 
ark. 

In order, however, to make this prodigious collection 
of animals and food, or even to prepare the ark for their 
reception, it was absolutely necessary that Noah should 
be thoroughly acquainted with the name, the size, the 
shape, the habits, etc., of every species of birds, beasts, 
reptiles, and insects. It was absolutely necessary, too, 


278 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


that he should know precisely where to find each living 
creature, how to capture it, what kind and what quantity 
of food to prepare for it, and at what temperature to keep 
the air around- it. It was also equally necessary that he 
should know the name, the place of growth, the nature, 
and the proper mode of preserving every plant that grew 
‘"upon the face of all the earth.” Had he not possessed 
this thorough knowledge of everything upon every square 
yard of “ the face of all the earth,” many species of plants, 
or of animals, would have been either overlooked or im¬ 
properly treated, and thus lost. In addition to all this 
knowledge, he must, also, of necessity, have been thor¬ 
oughly acquainted with all that pertains to navigation; 
and must, moreover, have possessed microscopes of won¬ 
derful magnifying power, with which to determine the sex, 
etc., of the myriads of animalculse that are utterly invisible 
to the naked eye. 

It was utterly impossible, however, for Noah, while 
superintending the building of the ark, to visit, in person, 
every square yard of “the face of all the earth,” and bring 
thence the animals and the plants to be found thereon. 
Of necessity, therefore, he must have sent out, both by sea 
and by land, thousands of large parties of men, each under 
the command of brave and faithful officers, who were well 
provided with powerful microscopes and a thousand other 
necessary instruments, and who were all as thoroughly 
acquainted as was he himself with the sciences of Zoology, 
Botany, Chemistry, Geography, Navigation, etc. But 
could all the men of the world, if sent out for that pur¬ 
pose, have been able, even with all their microscopes and 
other instruments, to discover, to capture, and to bring 
into the ark, the required number of each sex of every 
species of animals? Even if the required number of each 
sex and of every species had been discovered and captured, 
how many of them would have reached the ark alive? 
And of those that reached the ark alive, how many would 
have come forth alive, after a year’s confinement in the 


THE DELUGE. 


279 


unspeakably horrid liell of its rayless darkness, and its 
deadly gases? Finally, of those that might have survived 
even this terrific ordeal, how many would ever have been 
able to again reach their old homes, in which alone many 
of them were capable of living? Wliat would they have 
done for food, on their home journey, and how would they 
have crossed the oceans? Whatever may have been the 
case, before the deluge, after its subsidence, there cer¬ 
tainly could have been neither ships nor men to carry 
these poor creatures back to the countries whence they 
had severally come. 

To have collected such a menagerie as the one in ques¬ 
tion would have required more ships, sailors, scientific 
men, and money than ever existed in the world at any one 
time. It would also have required more perfect instru¬ 
ments than have ever yet been invented, and a higher 
degree of knowledge than has ever yet been attained. 
Besides all this, had there been any such ships, would 
not many of the sailors have escaped upon them? With 
all these absolutely insurmountable difficulties before us, 
does it not become certain that no such menagerie was 
ever collected by human means? 

Seeing, as we now do, that the animals in question 
could never have come together of their own accord , as one 
of the authors of Genesis plainly teaches that they did, 
and that they could never have been captured and brought 
together by Noali, as another author plainly teaches that 
they were, we are forced to renounce both of these Bible 
methods, and resort to the only remaining possible hy¬ 
pothesis, which is, that they were miraculously brought 
together, through the air, by God himself , or his angels. 

Although this last hypothesis derives very little, if any, 
support from the Bible, yet, because it is so exceedingly 
convenient, it is very popular with the champions of that 
book. It renders perfectly easy the accomplishment of 
the whole prodigious enterprise in question. These 
champions have only to assert—and this they are very 


280 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

fond of doing—that “with God all things are possible;”' 
and lo! the whole thing is done! To comprehend it all 
perfectly, they have merely to indefinitely stretch their 
elastic imaginations. They have only to fancy that they 
see countless legions of angels, with wings like the wings 
of geese, flapping about on every square rod of the earth’s 
surface, gathering food and catching animals. They have 
only to fancy that they see these angels— 

“ Climbing trees to hunt for bugs, 

Lifting stones to gather slugs, 

Or probing hollow logs to scare 
And rouse the vermin hiding there.” 

They have only to fancy that— 

“ The sky around that wondrous ark, 

For seven days was densely dark, 

With angels bringing in their store, 

Or else departing after more.” 

They have only to fancy that they see, pouring down 
from the blackened sky, a fearfully sublime hail-storm of— 
“ Lions, tigers, apes, and asses, 

Bags of corn, and bales of grasses; 

Elephants, rhinoceroses, 

Bisons, hippotamuses, 

And legions more great ugly cusses.” 

Yes, this is, undoubtedly, the very way in which that 
wonderful menagerie was collected. No wonder that the 
champions of the Bible are delighted with it! The whole 
thing is accomplished by the imagination alone. 

Has it, however, never struck you as an unaccountable 
fact that, on seeing this terrific hail-storm of beasts, birds, 
reptiles, etc., Noah’s ungodly neighbors did not exhibit the 
slightest surprise, alarm, or curiosity? According to the 
Bible account, those ancient sinners seemed to regard the 
whole matter as a very common-place affair. At any rate, 
so far from being at all disturbed at the sight of these won¬ 
derful phenomena, they very unconcernedly went right on 


THE DELUGE. 


281 


“eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” 
and seeing a jolly good time generally. Is not this a very 
strange fact? 

According to the Bible account, Noah had been one 
hundred and twenty years building the ark. This was 
built at a great distance inland, and was, by far, the most 
rapendous structure that had ever been erected. It was 
:i the heart of a densely populated country. Thousands 
of the people would have seen it, and all of them would 
have heard of it, and of the object for which it was being 
built. They would, undoubtedly, have been often warned, 
too, of their impending destruction. They would have 
known the very day on which, according to prediction, 
this fearful catastrophe was to begin. When, therefore, 
on that very day, they beheld a vast cataract of beasts, 
birds, reptiles, etc., pouring down out of the air, and, of 
their own accord, entering into the ark, would those 
people, hardened sinners though they may have been, 
have regarded these things with total indifference ? Would 
they have kept right on, as the Bible says they did, “ eat¬ 
ing and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage,” until 
they were actually swept away by the waters ol the deluge ? 
Was not human nature the same then that it is now? 
And would people now, if similarly situated, act in any 
such way? When those men perceived that the long-pre¬ 
dicted deluge w T as actually coming upon them, would they 
have made no effort to save themselves and their families? 
Would not many of them have entered the ark, driven out 
most of Noah’s menagerie, and saved themselves ? What 
would we do under similar circumstances ? 

As 1 have already stated, the deluge is said to have 
been brought upon the world for the express purpose of 
destroying the human race, who, though made—and made 
“very good,” too—in God’s own image, and trained up 
under his own direct control, had, nevertheless, become a 
set of so unruly rascals that, to his great chagrin, he found 
himself totally unable any longer to manage them. Indeed, 


282 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


having been originally made of dirt, they very naturally 
became, under God’s own direct training, so dirty a set of 
fellows that “ it repented the Lord that he had made man 
on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.” What could 
be more unutterably sad than is this despairing confession, 
on God’s part, of his own wretched failure? When God 
became fully convinced that he had committed an irrep¬ 
arable mistake in making these dirt, or, rather, these 
dirty fellows, he incontinently condemned them all to 
death, with the exception of one extremely dirty fellow, 
called Noah, and his family. The saving of this dirty fel¬ 
low for seed ultimately proved to be as great a mistake as 
was the making of that original dirty fellow, called Adam. 
Indeed, from beginning to end, this whole affair seems to 
have been a dirty business. 

After condemning the human race to death for being 
just what he himself had made them, God very graciously 
gave them a respite of one hundred and twenty years. 
Even this apparently merciful act, however, proved also to 
be, like all God’s other acts, a great mistake. Of course, 
it permitted nearly all of those whose sins had offended 
God to die peacefully in their beds, and left the penalty of 
death to fall upon those who, at the time the sentence was 
passed, were still unborn, and who, consequent^ could 
not have been guilty of any offense at all. In thus con¬ 
demning to death, as criminals, innocent babes as yet un¬ 
born, God was, undeniably, guilty of an act of horrible 
cruelty and injustice. 

In defense of God’s act on this occasion, it has been 
urged that he condemned to death the unborn generations 
in question, on account of the offenses of which he foresaw 
that they were to be guilty after they were born. But, 
without having, at the time, a complete plan of the future, 
spread out before him, how could he have possibly fore¬ 
seen who were to be born, in the future, and of w'hat 
offenses they were to be guilty ? And who, besides him¬ 
self, could have projected or preformed such a plan? 


THE DELUGE. 


283 


Was not lie himself, of necessity, the sole creator and con- 
droller of destiny, and of all things contained therein? 
Had he already stepped “down and out,” and turned over 
to another the business of planning and controlling the 
future? If not, and if he actually did foresee that certain 
persons were to be born in the future, and that they were 
to be guilty of certain offenses, must not he himself have 
been, of necessity, the planner and the predestinator of 
both the existence and the offenses of those persons? If, in 
his omnipotence, he had predetermined that none but 
good and virtuous men should exist in the future, could 
he have possibly foreseen the existence or the offenses of 
any others ? And could any others have possibly existed 
at all? 

Before God could possibly have foreseen the wicked¬ 
ness of the unborn generations in question, that wicked¬ 
ness must, of necessity, have been predetermined or fixed, 
in the future, as an unalterable fact. If, then, he did not 
himself predetermine that wickedness, and make it utterly 
unavoidable, who did do this, and who made known to 
him this predetermination? Who, besides himself, had 
the power to thus fix, as unalterable facts in the future, 
matters of so vast importance ? Admitting, however, that 
some other party did plan and predetermine both the 
existence and the offenses of the parties in question, had 
God, or had he not, the power to prevent the accomplish¬ 
ment of that wficked predetermination? If he had the 
power, he certainly did not use it, since the predetermina¬ 
tion was accomplished? In this case, was he not particeps 
criminis with the author of that predetermination? If he 
had not the power, was he not a God of most pitiable 
weakness? Was he not, in power, by far the inferior of 
the author of that predetermination? If he was unable to 
protect the persons in question from that stronger party, 
can he be able to protect us from that same party? Under 
the circumstances, would it not be well to secure the 
favor of that other party? In any view of the case, had 


284 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tlie unfortunate persons in question any power to avoid 
either the existence or the wickedness which, long before 
themselves were born, were thus fixed, as utterly unalter¬ 
able facts, upon them? Was it not horribly cruel and 
unjust, then, in God, to doom these poor people to die as 
criminals for being that which he very well knew they 
had no power to avoid being, and which he himself lacked 
either the will or the power to prevent them from being? 

The champions of the Bible declare that God did 
possess all power; and that, had he so willed, he could 
have made all men perfectly good, and perfectly happy. 
They declare, however, that, to have made men thus 
would not have been in accordance with his plan. They 
thus fully admit that he was himself the planner of the 
future, and that the wickedness and the misery of men, 
and not their righteousness and their happiness, were in 
accordance with that plan. They declare, too, that, if he 
so willed, he could, now, in an instant, banish from the 
earth every vestige of evil; that he could make all men 
perfectly good and happy; that he could save them all 
from hell, and make them all partakers of the unimagin¬ 
able joys—the never-fading glories of his own bright and 
blissful abode. When, however, we ask, “Why the devil, 
then, does he not do this?” the reply is, that to do so 
would not be in accordance with his plan—his plan of 
salvation, as it is now, strangely enough, generally called. 
But what kind of a plan of salvation is that with which 
the universal righteousness of men on earth, and their 
universal salvation in heaven, are thus not in accordance? 
What kind of a plan of salvation is that of which Jesus 
himself said : “ For wide is the gate, and broad is the way, 
that leadetli to destruction, and many there be which go in 
thereat: [Why so many?] because strait is the gate, and 
narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there 
be that find it?” Who planned and constructed these 
two gates, and these two ways? What kind of a plan of 
salvation is that which thus renders possible an escape 


THE DELUGE. 


285 


unto life,” to only a “ few” of the human race, and which 
thus dooms the “ many ” to unavoidable and eternal “ de¬ 
struction,” in the never-dying flames of hell? 

Does not this plan propose to accomplish tenfold more 
damnation than salvation? Is it, then, a plan of salvation 
at all, and is its author a Savior? Is it not rather a plan 
of damnation or destruction, and is not its author rather 
a Damner or Destroyer? Would you call that invention 
a life-preserver which is, designedly, so planned and con¬ 
structed as to insure the destruction of nine-tenths or 
more of all those who use it? Would you not rather call 
it an infernal machine? And is that priestly invention, 
called God’s plan of salvation, any better than would be 
such an infernal machine ? 

Even if we leave entirely out of our account all its possi¬ 
ble influences upon our extremely problematical existence, 
as conscious beings, after death, what are the principal re¬ 
sults of this absurdly so-called plan of salvation ? Did it not, 
as an absolutely necessary condition of its origin, require 
the deliberate and the horribly cruel murder of the inno¬ 
cent and the well-meaning, but the strangely fanatical, 
Jesus? If he had not been thus murdered, could this 
plan have ever been put in operation ? If not, do we not 
owe the plan itself to the devil, the traitor, and the band 
of murderers who so graciously accomplished that mur¬ 
der? Has not this plan been, by far, the most fruitful of 
all the causes of dissensions among individuals, and 
among nations? Has it not produced more wars, and far 
bloodier ones, than have all other causes put together? 
Has it not led to more ignorance, superstition, and crime, 
and to the invention and the use of far more numerous 
and horrible instruments of torture, than have all other 
influences combined? Did not Jesus himself, the putative 
son of its projector, declare that he “ came not to send 
peace on earth but a sword?” And does not the whole 
history of the last eighteen centuries fully prove that he 
was wonderfully successful in sending “ a sword,” with all 


286 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


of its attendant evils, upon the earth? Did he not also de¬ 
clare that he had “ come to set a man at variance against his 
father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daugh¬ 
ter-in-law against her mother-in-law?” Did he not further 
declare that, as a legitimate and inevitable result of this 
plan, “a man’s foes shall be they of his own household?” 
And has not this part of the plan been also fearfully suc¬ 
cessful ? Has it not, both in families and in communities, 
produced more dissensions, and fiercer ones, than has any 
other one cause? And can the instrument of so much 
evil be properly called a plan of salvation? Did not Jesus 
utterly deny his own parents, and did he not, as a part of 
this plan, require his followers to act in the same unnat¬ 
ural manner toward their parents ? Did he not even for¬ 
bid his followers to bury their deceased parents? Did he 
not require every one of his followers to “ hate his father, 
and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sis¬ 
ters?” Did he not, both by precept and example, teach 
his followers to abandon all forms of industry, and to live 
the lives of vagrants? And what but the crushing out 
from the souls of men all the nobler sentiments of human¬ 
ity can result from a plan that thus requires us to trample 
under foot all the sacred ties that bind us to our parents, 
our brothers, our sisters, our wives, and our children, and to 
become idlers and vagrants, taking “ no thought, saying, 
What shall we eat? or what shall we drink? or where¬ 
withal shall we be clothed?” Was it not the success of 
this so-called plan of salvation that plunged the world 
into the frightful mental and moral gloom of the Dark 
Ages ? And would not a repetition of that success neces¬ 
sarily result in a repetition of that frightful darkness? 
Does not the same cause, of necessity, always produce the 
same effect? 

Even in its present hopelessly crippled condition, what 
are still the legitimate workings of this so-called plan of 
salvation? Does it not, under one pretense or another, 
rob the poor, overworked, overtaxed, over-credulous, and 


THE DELUGE. 


287 


priest-ridden people of incalculable sums of money to be 
squandered in the erection and the furnishing of those 
innumerable resorts of fashion, pomp, and pride—those 
gorgeous and costly structures called churches, cathedrals, 
etc., which are built, ostensibly, for God’s use, but which 
he never needs and never enters? Does it not, under simi¬ 
lar pretenses, rob the same people of still greater sums of 
money to be worse than squandered in the keeping up of 
immense armies of bigoted, intolerant, selfish, cunning, 
and often licentious priests, monks, friars, preachers, etc., 
whose principal business seems to be to prove one another 
liars, heretics, impostors, imps of the devil, etc.? Does it 
not still keep up interminable, and exceedingly bitter dis¬ 
sensions in families, in communities, and among nations? 
Is it not, to-day, causing the rivers of some of the fairest 
lands of earth to run red with human blood? Is it not 
to-day, according to your own teachings, still peopling, by 
wholesale, those horrid regions of utter despair, those bot¬ 
tomless pits of unspeakable torments, those frightfully 
dark, and yet fearfully fiery caverns of your never-ending 
hell? Take away all of these grand results, and what 
would this so-called plan of salvation be accomplishing? 

Continue, if you will, as heretofore, to apply to me a 
thousand opprobrious epithets; continue, if you will, to 
curse and to persecute me to the full satisfaction of your 
bigoted and intolerant hearts ; continue, if you will, to rob 
my life of all you can of its sunlight and its gladness; con¬ 
tinue, if you will, to hurry me on all you can toward the 
ravless darkness, the echoless silence, of the approaching 
tomb; and yet you can never make me regard with any 
other feelings than those of the most utter abhorrence this 
abominable plan of so-called salvation. You can never 
make me regard, with any other feelings than those of 
the most unspeakable detestation, the heartless bungler, 
whether he were a God, a man, or a devil, who invented 
it, and put it into operation. 


288 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


If nine-tenths of my loved ones are destined to go to 
hell, as they must be according to the workings of this so- 
called plan of salvation, I beg leave to go there, too. I am 
as capable of bearing the horrid flames of hell as are my 
children and other loved ones who may be predestinated 
to suffer forever their unspeakable torments. Indeed, I 
think that, under the circumstances, I would be less 
wretched there than I would be anywhere else. Whatever my 
surroundings might be in heaven, I could not endure them. 
I would be continually tormented with the unutterably ago¬ 
nizing thought that, through God’s abominable plan of so- 
called salvation, my poor, dear children and other loved 
ones were in hell, writhing and shrieking, with never a 
moment’s rest, in the midst of the awful flames—the 
quenchless fires of that unutterably horrid region of eter¬ 
nal despair. In fancy, I would behold their flaming eyes, 
and hear their fearful, their never-ceasing, cries of utterly 
unspeakable anguish. In fancy, I would behold my chil¬ 
dren’s poor withered hands, extended imploringly toward 
me, from the midst of the fearful flames writhing around 
them, and hear their dear, their well-remembered voices, 
crying, “ 0 father! father! father /” These awful visions 
would be constantly before my eyes, these fearful cries 
constantly ringing in my ears. How, then, could I endure 
heaven? How could I bear the constant sight of the de¬ 
liberate Author of all this uncalled-for woe? How could 
I bear to gaze on him perched upon a throne, in the center 
of heaven’s public square, surrounded by the “ few ” who 
have found the “strait gate,” and the “narrow way;” 
whom, however, it seems he dare not trust, even for a mo¬ 
ment, out of his own sight, and whom he keeps constantly 
shouting, “Glory! glory! glory!” or else tooting on penny 
trumpets, loaned them for that purpose ? 

You cannot deny that this description of heaven is sub¬ 
stantially that usually given by the orthodox champions of 
the Bible. And yet, whatever such a heaven might be to 
other saints, to me, it would be a place of intolerable tor- 


THE DELUGE 


289 


ments. I could not endure to stand there forever, in the 
same spot, crying the same monotonous words: Glory! 
glory! glory! or tooting, on my penny trumpet, the same mo¬ 
notonous sounds, up at the one whose abominable plan had 
doomed my loved ones to the unutterably fearful torments 
which I have endeavored to depict. My tootings would 
be but the sad wailings of a bleeding heart, and I would 
try^o steal away from the hateful sights and the hateful 
sounds of this so-called heaven, and go down to hell to my 
poor, suffering, and infinitely wronged children, whose in¬ 
nocent prattle used to make my heart so glad when they 
were the lights, the joys, of my old earthly home. But I 
am making too long a digression. 

As to what became of the souls of the people who were 
destroyed by the deluge, we are not informed. Indeed, if, 
at that early period of the world’s history, any such things as 
souls had been invented, we have not a particle of evidence 
of that fact. All of my own researches go to show that souls 
did. not come into anything like general use until over 
fifteen hundred years afterwards. Admitting, however, 
that all those people did have souls, what became of those 
souls? Did God take them right into heaven, or did he 
intensify their torments by the suddenness of their tran¬ 
sition from the cold waters of the deluge to the intensely 
fierce fires of hell? There was an important difference be¬ 
tween these two methods of disposing of those souls, and 
the champions of the Bible ought to be able to inform us 
which one of them God adopted on that occasion. If, in 
the form of souls, those ungodly rascals were taken right 
into heaven, out of the wet, they were, undeniably, the 
most fortunate people that ever lived. By an almost pain¬ 
less death, and without living separated from those they 
loved, they were nil ushered, at once, into the unspeakable 
joys of heaven. If, however, they were incontinently 
hustled right out of the water into the fiercest fires of hell, 
their fate was certainly a very melancholy one. 

As a rule, the champions of the Bible, for obvious 


290 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


reasons, are not fond of discoursing upon this part of the 
subject. Some of them, however, assume that God 
promptly damned all of those people except the young 
children whom he took to himself in heaven. As a reason 
for this marked discrimination between the children and 
the adults, these champions assign the fact that the chil¬ 
dren had not sinned as had the adults. This argument, 
however, although a very specious one, is, nevertheless, a 
very fallacious one, and does not, in the least, tend to jus¬ 
tify the discrimination in question. Had these children 
been permitted to live until they became adults, they 
would, without doubt, have become just as great sinners 
as were those who were already adults. The innocence of 
the children, therefore, was due entirely to the appar¬ 
ently accidental circumstance (for which they could claim 
no credit), that they had never yet had a chance to sin. 
Were they, then, any'better than were the adults? Were 
they not simply undeveloped sinners of the same kind? 
Could not God foresee what sins they would commit, if 
their lives were extended, just as he had foreseen what sins 
the adults would commit, whose lives had been extended? 
And was it not entirely for prospective sins that, one hun¬ 
dred and twenty years before, he had passed, upon those 
who were now adults, the double doom of death and dam¬ 
nation? At the time that the sentence of death was 
passed upon them, all the victims of the deluge, being, 
with very few exceptions, still unborn, were, of necessity, 
equally innocent, or equally guilty. As yet, none of them 
were actually guilty; all of them w^ere prospectively so. 
The only difference was that, upon God’s prevision, the 
prospective sins of those who were predestinated to be 
adults at the time of the deluge fell before that event, 
and, hence, at the time of the deluge, existed, as accom¬ 
plished facts, in the past; while the prospective sins of 
those who were predestinated to be children at the time 
of the deluge, fell after that event, and, hence, at the time 
of the deluge, were still in the future, and still unaccom- 


THE DELUGE. 


291 


plished. But did this difference of time, at which these 
two sets of prospective sins were to be committed, make 
any difference in the nature of the sins themselves, or in 
the characters of the prospective sinners who were to com¬ 
mit them? Were not these two sets of sins equally pres¬ 
ent to God ? Was not a sin prospectively committed one 
hundred and twenty-one years in the future, just as offens¬ 
ive as was a sin of the same kind prospectively commit¬ 
ted only one hundred and twenty years in the future? 
And was not the party, prospectively guilty of the sin of 
the former date, just as much an object of punishment, in 
God’s eyes, as was the party prospectively guilty of the 
sin of the latter date? 

Besides all these things, we know that God could not 
possibly have foreseen what persons would exist in the 
future, and of what sin each one of them would be guilty, 
until he had himself made out a complete plan or map of 
the future, and had given each of these persons, together 
with his apportionment of sins, a place on that plan or 
map. We know, too, that God could not possibly have 
foreseen the dates at which certain predestinated persons 
would live in the future, and the dates at which they 
would, severally, be guilty of certain predestinated sins, 
until he had himself fixed those dates upon his map of 
the future. Those persons, therefore, that he foresaw 
would be adults, at the time of the deluge, were, evidently, 
to be so simply because he had himself assigned to them, 
severally, such positions, on his map of the future, that, 
at the time of the deluge, they could not possibly be oth¬ 
erwise than adults. So of the sins of which he foresaw 
that, previous to the deluge, these persons would, sever¬ 
ally, be guilty. If, at the time of the deluge, these sins, 
had already been committed, this fact was, evidently, 
because, on his map of the future, God had himself so< 
fixed the dates, at which they were, severally, to be com¬ 
mitted, that, at the time of the deluge, they could not pos¬ 
sibly be otherwise than already committed. If, then. 


292 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

because lie foresaw that, at the time fixed for the deluge, 
those persons would be adults, and would be guilty of 
actual transgressions, he doomed them to eternal damna¬ 
tion, he evidently did so simply because of the position 
which he had himself assigned to them, on his map of the 
future. In other words, he evidently doomed them to 
inevitable damnation, at the very same moment that he 
predestinated them to existence. And all this is equally 
true of those whom our champions of the Bible would 
fain have us believe that, on the occasion in question, God 
graciously took, from the cold waters of the deluge, right 
into his own bright mansions of bliss. If God foresaw 
that, at the time fixed for the deluge, these persons would 
still be infants, and that, from want of power to be other¬ 
wise, they would still be innocent of actual transgressions, 
he evidently foresaw these things simply because, on his 
map of the future, he had himself assigned to these per¬ 
sons, severally, such positions that, at the time fixed for 
the deluge, they could not possibly be otherwise than still 
infants, and still innocent of actual transgressions. And 
if,- because of this, their foreseen infancy and innocency, 
God elected them to eternal life, he evidently did so sim¬ 
ply because of the position which he had himself assigned 
to them, on his map of the future. In other words, he 
evidently elected them to eternal life at the very same mo¬ 
ment that he predestinated them to existence. And this 
same doctrine of pre-election and pre-condemnation, which 
makes God a monster of partiality, injustice, and cruelty, 
may be extended, from the victims of the deluge, and, with 
equal truth and propriety, be applied to all the people 
that ever have existed, or ever yet will exist upon the 
earth. 

Admitting, however, that God was such a monster, 
there still arises a very grave question in regard to the ex¬ 
act age, size, or degree of intelligence, below which he 
saved those victims of the deluge, and above which he 
damned them. As a dividing line, he was bound to fix 


THE DELUGE. 


293 


upon some certain age, some certain size, or some certain 
degree of intelligence. A difference, therefore, of one 
minute in age, of one ounce in weight, or of one idea in in¬ 
telligence, would, in many instances, have determined 
whether a person was to be eternally saved, or eternally 
damned. To such an individual, the dividing line was a 
matter of vast importance. What, then, was that dividing 
line? Let it have been what it may, however, when mak¬ 
ing out his map of the future, God himself, unalterably, 
fixed every individual’s position, on the one side or the 
other of that dividing line. No one, therefore, on the one 
side, could possibly miss heaven; and no one, on the other 
side, could possibly escape hell. And this remark is 
equally true of all the balance of mankind. 

In former lectures, I fully proved that the book which 
contains this story of the deluge is totally unauthentic 
and unworthy of belief. In my present lecture, by prov¬ 
ing that no such deluge ever could have possibly occurred, 
I have proved the whole story to be, at best, a baseless 
fabrication. Admitting, however, that such a deluge did 
occur, was it not a huge failure ? Did it render the human 
race any better? And was it not a humiliating confession, 
on God’s part, that he was totally unable any longer to 
control the poor weak creatures whom his own hands had 
made, and whom he had, so boastingly, pronounced “ very 
good?” 



294 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


LECTURE NINTH. 

THE EXODUS. 

Of all the incredible stories gravely related in the 
Bible, the most extravagant, perhaps, is that concerning 
the Hebrews, from the time that Joseph was sold into 
Egypt, to the time of their final settlement in the land of 
Canaan. According to the generally accepted chronology 
of the Bible, this story covers a period of about two hun¬ 
dred and seventy-eight years. Since, however, the depart¬ 
ure of the Hebrews from Egypt is the most important event 
mentioned in it, I shall treat the whole story under the 
single title of the Exodus. 

This story as fully sets reason, science, and common 
sense at defiance as do any of the tales of Gulliver, Sindbad 
the Sailor, or Jack the Giant-killer. I am aware that this 
is a very grave charge to bring against a story that is gen¬ 
erally accepted and revered as a portion of the “ Inspired 
Word of God.” Before I close, however, I will prove that 
the charge is, in every respect, a perfectly just one. 

Notwithstanding the monstrous extravagance of this 
story, it claims to be simply a concise and correct history 
of the Hebrews during the period above named. The 
principal ’ events mentioned in it are represented as hav¬ 
ing occurred according to the ordinary laws of nature. 
No matter, then, how hard pressed the champions of the 
Bible may find themselves, in their efforts to explain away 
the difficulties involved in this story, they have no right to 
assume, for any of these events, a miraculous character not 
claimed for them by the authors of the story. 


THE EXODUS. 


295 


First of all, I will notice wliat is said of the patriarch 
Judah and his family. From the chronology of the Bible 
we learn that, at the very utmost, Judah was only four 
years older than his half-brother Joseph. When, there¬ 
fore, at the age of seventeen, Joseph was sold into Egypt, 
Judah could not have been more than twenty-one years of 
age. Be this as it may, however, only twenty-two years 
elapsed, from the selling of Joseph, to the departure of 
Jacob and his family into Egypt, and it is principally with 
these twenty-two years that we are concerned. But how 
do we know that only twenty-two years elapsed between 
the two events above mentioned ? In Gen. xxxvii, 2-28, we 
learn that Josepli was seventeen years of age, at the time 
he was sold into Egypt; and, in Gen. xli, 46, we learn that 
he was thirty years of age when he stood before Pharaoh. 
This latter event, as we learn from the balance of the chap¬ 
ter, was followed by seven years of wonderful plenty, and 
these by about two years of famine, that Jacob and his 
family endured before they went down into Egypt. These 
seven years of plenty, and two years of famine, added to 
thirty years, gives us thirty-nine years as Joseph’s age at 
the time Jacob went down into Egypt; and this number, 
diminished by seventeen, gives us the twenty-two years 
which I claim between the two events in question. In 
this estimate, I am sustained by the chronology of the 
Bible. Let us see, then, what Judah and his family ac¬ 
complished in these twenty-two years. 

From Gen. xxxviii, we learn that, soon after the selling 
of Joseph, Judah formed the acquaintance of a young 
Canaanitish woman, whom he courted and married, and 
who, at single births, bore him three sons, Er, Onan, and 
Shelah. Allowing that Mrs. Judah bore one son a year, 
and this is about the best she could have done, the oldest, 
had he lived, would have been about twenty-one years of 
age at the time that Jacob went down into Egypt. The 
second, had he lived, would have been about twenty years 
of age at that time, and the youngest, who did live, about 


296 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


nineteen years of age. Er, however, married a y oun g 
woman by the name of Tamar, and then, because he “ was. 
wicked in the sight of the Lord, the Lord slew him.” 
How long the widow Er remained in mourning for her de¬ 
ceased husband, we are not informed. As was the custom 
among the Hebrews, however, Onan, her husband’s oldest 
surviving brother, finally “went in unto her,” but per¬ 
formed the solemn duties of the occasion in so slovenly a 
manner that God, in huge disgust, “ slew him also.” After 
the death of Onan, Tamar, for some time, remained a 
widow, at her father’s house, waiting for Shelah to grow 
up and become of marriageable age. The accepted chro¬ 
nology of the Bible makes it two years. Whatever the 
time may have been, it was sufficient to enable Shelah to 
pass from boyhood to manhood; and sufficient, too, after 
he had become a man, to convince Tamar that he did not 
intend to come “ in unto her ” at all. 

When Tamar became fully satisfied that the ungallant 
Shelah did not propose to put in an appearance, in her bed- 
chamber, she became greatly incensed, as well she might, 
at his utter failure to appreciate her charms. In order, 
therefore, to have as good a time as possible, under the 
circumstances, and, at the same time, to avenge her slighted 
charms, this buxom widow cunningly got up a liaison with 
her father-in-law, the righteous old Judah himself. The 
result of this liaison was that, at one birth, she bore to 
Judah two sons, Pliarez and Zarah. These two sons then 
grew to manhood, and one of them, Pharez, in his turn, 
begat two sons, Hezron and Hamul, both of whom were 
born in time to be numbered, by name, as two of the sev¬ 
enty that went down into Egypt. 

As I have already shown, Shelah could not have been 
born more than nineteen years before the departure into 
Egypt. Within these nineteen years, we have six consecu¬ 
tive periods: 1st, the period required by Shelah to grow 
from birth to manhood; 2d, the period during which 
Tamar waited, after “ she saw that Shelah was grown,” to 



THE EXODUS. 


297 


see whether he would, or would not, come “ in unto her; ” 
3d, the period of nine months, required by her to bear the 
twins, Pharez and Zarali; 4th, the period required by 
Pharez to grow from birth to manhood ; 5th, the period, of 
at least nine months, required by his wife to bear Hezron 
and Hamul; 6th, the period that elapsed after the birth of 
these two children, before the departure into Egypt. 

For obvious reasons, the two nine-month periods, 
named in this list, cannot be rendered any shorter; and, 
their sum, taken from nineteen years, leaves us only sev¬ 
enteen and a half years for the other four consecutive 
periods. Even this short time we obtain by unwarrantably 
assuming that Hezron and Hamul were either twins, or 
else were born, at the same time, of different mothers. To 
have them born, at separate births, of the same mother, 
would, of necessity, reduce our already fearfully short time 
by nearly a year. This reduction of time, we evidently 
cannot bear. Assuming, therefore, that these two children 
w r ere born at the same time, and allowing only six months 
for the period during which Tamar waited for Shelah to 
come in unto her after she saw that he “ was grown,” and 
also for the period that elapsed after the birth of Hezron 
and Hamul before the departure into Egypt, we have just 
seventeen years to divide between the consecutive lives of 
Shelah and Pharez. Dividing this time equally between 
them, w r e have Shelah only eight and a half years old at 
the time that he “was grown ” and fit to go in unto Tamar 
as her husband. We also have Pharez only of the same 
age at the time he became a patriarch by begetting Hezron 
and Hamul. This was quite an improvement upon the 
slow-going ancestors of Shelah and Pharez. Abraham be¬ 
gat no children till he was eiglity-six years of age; Isaac 
none till he was sixty; and Jacob none till he was eighty- 
four. Our eight-and-a-half-year-old patriarchs would have 
had posterity of the tenth generation before these old 
fogies made a beginning. 


298 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


I do not suppose that any intelligent person really be¬ 
lieves that, at the tender age of eight and a half years, 
“ Shelah was grown,” and fit to enter into the marriage re¬ 
lation; or that, at the same tender age, Pliarez became the 
father of two sons. It is evident, therefore, that we must 
either find some means by which to considerably increase 
the ages of these two incipient patriarchs, or else reject 
the whole story as an absurd fable. In order, then, to gain 
time for these two persons, let us suppose that, on the very 
day that Joseph was sold, Judah formed the acquaintance 
of Miss Shuah, courted her, married her, and begat upon 
her their first son Er. Let us also suppose that there was 
an interval of only ten months between the birth of Er and 
that of Onan, and only the same interval between the birth 
of Onan and that of Shelah. This is all the crowding of 
which these matters will possibly admit. In this way, we 
have Shelah born twenty-nine months after the selling of 
Joseph, and nineteen years and seven months before the 
going down into Egypt. In this way, we gain seven 
months on our former calculation. Let us now suppose 
that Tamar conceived of Judah on the very day that “ she 
saw that Shelah was grown,” and that Jacob departed into 
Egypt on the very day on which Hezron and Hamul were 
born. This is evidently all the crowding of which these 
matters will possibly admit. In this way we gain six more 
months on our former calculation. By this desperate 
crowding of events to the full extent of possibility, we 
make a total gain of thirteen months. Dividing these be¬ 
tween our two incipient patriarchs, Shelah and Pharez, we 
make each a few days over nine years of age. 

Blind as the champions of the Bible generally are to 
all that pertains to the book that they worship, some of 
them have been compelled to notice the monstrous absurd¬ 
ity of a story that involves the necessity of having boys 
become husbands and fathers at the extremely tender age 
of nine years or less. In order, therefore, as far as pos¬ 
sible, to obviate this difficulty, some of these champions 


THE EXODUS. 


299 


have assumed that the marriage of Judah occurred pre¬ 
vious to the selling of Joseph, and, consequently, more 
than twenty-two years before the going down into Egypt. 
In making this assumption, however, these champions come 
into direct conflict with the accepted chronology of the 
Bible, and with the order of events as related in the story 
itself. After giving an account of the selling of Joseph, 
the author, without any break in his narrative, goes right 
on and says: “And it came to pass at that time , that Judah 
went down from his brethren, and turned in to a certain 
Adullamite, whose name was Hirah. And Judah saw there 
a daughter of a certain Canaanite, whose name was Shuah, 
and he took her, and went in unto her. And she conceived, 
and bare a son; and he called his name Er ” (Gen. xxxviii, 
1-3). The phrase “ at that time” evidently refers to some¬ 
thing mentioned in the preceding verse, which reads as fol¬ 
lows: “And the Midianites sold him [Joseph] into Egypt 
unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s and captain of the 
guard.” From this, it is clear that Judah’s marriage was 
subsequent, not only to the selling of Joseph to the Midian¬ 
ites, but, also, to the re-selling of him by them, to Poti¬ 
phar. And do these champions, by assuming that the 
author of the story lies in regard to the time of Judalis 
marriage , prove that he necessarily tells the truth in regard 
to all other matters ? 

Admitting, however, that, in regard to this one particu¬ 
lar matter, these champions of the Bible do know more 
than did the author of the story, how much do they gain 
by the admission? We have already seen that, at the time 
of the selling of Joseph, Judah, at the very most, was 
only twenty-one years of age. Bishop Colenso, and many 
other able Bible critics, make him, at that time, only twenty- 
years of age. How much farther back, then, can we ven¬ 
ture to place his marriage than it is placed by the Bible? 
If we place it back seven years, we have him married at 
the ridiculously tender age of only thirteen, or, at most, 
fourteen years; and then, when we divide these seven 


300 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


years equally between our nine-year-old patriarchs, we 
make- them only twelve and a half years old. We could 
not possibly take enough time from Judah to make these 
other two little boys anything like marriageable men. In 
any view of the case, therefore, the whole story is evi¬ 
dently an absurd fable. 

Speaking of the period in question, the great Commen¬ 
tator, Dr. Clarke, candidly confesses that, “ in such a short 
space of time, it is impossible that so many transactions 
could have taken place.” Bishop Colenso, too, one of the 
ablest Bible critics of the world, notices the insurmount¬ 
able difficulties involved in this matter, and, like a true 
man, rejects the whole story as an absurd fiction. Kurtz 
also notices these same difficulties, but, like a true priest, 
attempts to prop up the story, and thus sustain the Bible, 
by unblushingly assuming that, although they were num¬ 
bered, by name, as two of the seventy Hebrews that went 
down into Egypt, Hezron and Hamul were not born until 
many years after their arrival in Egypt—that they were 
numbered and named as going, down into Egypt, because 
they did go down thither, in the loins of their father, Pharez, 
who, at that time, was, himself, an infant. A strange 
explanation, truly! Why none of the rest of Jacob’s unborn 
posterity—why the whole future nation of the Hebrews 
were not thus numbered and named as thus going down 
into Egypt, on that occasion, in the loins of their respect¬ 
ive fathers, our learned champion of the Bible does not 
see fit to inform us. Many others went down into Egypt 
in the loins of adult fathers, and were begotten and born 
long before the infant, Pharez, was capable of paternity. 
To me, therefore, it seems that, if any were thus num¬ 
bered and named as going down into Egypt, it should have 
been those who were most nearly approaching the time of 
their conception, and of their birth. Why, then, were all 
of these overlooked, and two others counted in who were 
not to be conceived and born until many years later? The 
reason is very obvious. It is simply the fact that the 



THE EXODUS. 


301 


great blunder committed by tlie inventor of the story, in 
having three consecutive generations of the same family 
born within the space of nineteen years or less, renders it 
absolutely necessary to either reject the whole story as fab¬ 
ulous, or assume that one of these generations, Hezron and 
Hamul, were named and numbered, by anticipation, many 
years before their conception and their birth. In other 
w T ords, Kurtz and other similar champions of the Bible at¬ 
tempt to sustain the truth of the story as a ivliole , by proving 
that a certain portion of it is, undeniably , false Their mode of 
reasoning is exactly similar to that of the boy who argued 
that, because one cupful of the milk which he was ped¬ 
dling was found to be very full of dirt , his store of milk as 
a whole , must be very jdean. But what kind of a book is 
it that thus forces its champions to resort to assumptions 
so utterly unwarrantable, and so monstrously absurd? 

Let us now notice Benjamin’s exploits as a procreator. 
As to the age of this patriarch at the time of the going 
down into Egypt, there is a great diversity of opinions 
among the champions of the Bible. In order to sustain 
the Bible, they find it necessary to make him as old as 
they possibly can. Most of them, therefore, make him, 
at that time, about twenty-four years of age, and, in my 
notice of him, I will accept this estimate. That he was 
much younger than this, however, and not yet nearly 
grown, appears evident from the fact that, in speaking of 
him to Joseph, Judah constantly applies to him the terms, 
“lad” “child” “little one” etc., which are never applied to 
full-grown men. During the delivery of this speech, 
which is given in Gen. xliv, 18-34, Benjamin was himself 
present. Had he, therefore, really been anything more 
than a mere “lad ” a mere “child ” a “littleone ” etc., Judah, 
in applying to him these terms, would have acted in an 
extremely ridiculous manner. Judah would certainly not 
have thus pleaded the tender age of a full-grown man of 
twenty-four years. Besides this, all the paintings and 
pictures, both ancient and modern, of Benjamin at that 


302 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


time, agree in representing him as a mere child, but little 
more than half the size of his full-grown brothers. His 
comparative size and appearance would indicate an age of 
about thirteen years. 

Whatever his age and his size may have been, however, 
this “ lad,” this “ child,” this “little one ” was, at that very 
time, the father of ten sons, who are numbered by name, 
in Gen. xlvi, 21, as of the seventy that went down into 
Egypt. Was not the fruitfulness of this “ little one ” 
rather wonderful ? Does it not become more so, when we 
reflect that none of his eleven brothers—all'of whom were 
much older than himself—had more than seven children? 
How did he, at so tender an age, manage to beget so many 
sons? So far as I am aware, no one claims that he had more 
than one wife, or that any of his sons were twins, triplets, 
quadruplets, quintuplets, or anything of that kind. They 
all seem to have been born at single births, and of one 
mother. 

Dr. Clarke and some other champions of the Bible, 
have this remarkably enterprising “lad” marry at fifteen 
years of age, and then so bestir himself, in the good work, 
that, in the few months or years remaining to him before 
going down into Egypt, he performed the wonderful feat, 
for such a “lad,” of begetting the ten sons in question. 
That the thing here assumed comes within the bounds of 
possibility, I admit; but does it come within the bounds of 
probability? Tracing Benjamin’s genealogy all the way 
back to Adam, we find that only one of his whole line of 
ancestors begat a child before his thirtieth year; and 
that that one was twenty-nine years of age when he per¬ 
formed this act. We find that the average age, at which 
this entire line of ancestors severally begat their first chil¬ 
dren, was over ninety-eight years. We also find that, of 
this line, the four generations, immediately preceding Ben¬ 
jamin, averaged seventy-five years of age at the time that 
they severally began to beget children. Is it at all cred¬ 
ible, then, that the long-established custom of the family. 


THE EXODUS. 


303 


of not marrying until late in life, was so suddenly and so 
radically changed that Benjamin began to beget children 
at fifteen years of age—at just one-fiftli the average age at 
which the same thing was begun by the nearest four of 
his ancestors, and at only a little over one-seventli of the 
average age at which it was begun by all of his ancestors? 
So in the case of Judah, which we have just examined. 
He, together with his sons and his grandsons, represent 
three generations, who, as we have already seen, must, on 
an average, have begun the laudable business of begetting 
children at the extremely tender age of thirteen years or 
less; while Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the three next pre¬ 
ceding generations, did not begin the same laudable busi¬ 
ness, until at an average age of nearly seventy-seven years, 
or six times the average age of the three generations rep- 
sented by Judah and his family. Is so great a change, in 
so short a time, at all credible ? 

Some of the champions of the Bible, not wishing to be 
too hard upon a “ child,” and a “little one” at that, per¬ 
mit Benjamin to beget most of his sons, if not all of them, 
after his arrival in Egypt. These champions have the ten 
young Benjamins in question named and numbered, by an¬ 
ticipation, as going down into Egypt in the loins of their 
father. How hard pressed, not to say dishonest, these 
champions of the Bible must be, when they resort to as¬ 
sumptions so unwarrantable, so absurd, and so contradic¬ 
tory to the plain teachings of the Bible! By the same 
process of reasoning, I can prove that I was an American 
officer in the war of the Revolution; having been present 
in the loins of my father’s grandfather, who served in that 
capacity. 

From Gen. xlvi, 23, we learn that Dan had only one son ; 
and yet, from the 1st and the 2d chapters of Numbers, we 
learn that, at the time of the Exodus, the tribe of Dan, 
from this one son, had increased to sixty-two thousand 
seven hundred men capable of bearing arms ; while, in the 
same time, from ten sons, the tribe of Benjamin had in- 


304 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


creased to only thirty-five thousand four hundred men 
capable of bearing arms. This gives us, for two hundred 
and fifteen years, a ratio of increase, in the tribe of Dan, 
eighteen times greater than that in the tribe of Benjamin. 
And yet the two tribes were living in the same country, 
and surrounded by the same circumstances. So great a 
difference, therefore, for so long a period, in the ratio of 
increase, in these two tribes, certainly does not come within 
the bounds of reasonable credibility. 

This wonderful and unaccountable difference, however, 
becomes still more incredible when we reflect that Benja¬ 
min’s own personal ratio of increase, ten sons in ten years 
or less from the time he became capable of paternity, was 
at least thirty times greater than that of Dan, only one 
son in thirty years or more from the time he became capa¬ 
ble of paternity. From a ratio of thirty times greater, in 
his own person, to one eighteen times less, in his pos- 
terit}^, shows a relative falling-off of four thousand eight 
hundred per cent, in the tribe of Benjamin. This pro¬ 
digious, and utterly unaccountable falling-off sets at defi¬ 
ance all the know r n law's of human reproduction, and brands 
the whole story as simply an absurd fable. 

From Gen. 1, 46, we learn that Joseph died at the age 
of one hundred and ten years. This v r ould make his death 
occur seventy-one years after Jacob’s arrival in Egypt. 
Then, according to our accepted chronology of the Bible, 
thirty-one years after Joseph’s death, or one hundred and 
tw'o years after Jacob’s arrival in Egypt, “there arose up a 
new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph. And he 
said unto his people, Behold, the people of the children of 
Israel are more and mightier than tee” (Ex. i, 8, 9). In the 
preceding verse, the author, in advance, confirms this un¬ 
qualified assertion by declaring that “the children of Israel 
were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied, 
and w^axed exceeding mighty: and the land was filled with 
them.” Can these assertions be true? Can it be possible 
that, in so short a time, seventy persons increased to such 


THE EXODUS. 


305 

an extent that “the land was filled with them,” and that 
they were “ more and mightier ” than were the Egyptians, 
who were already one of the greatest of nations before 
Jacob’s arrival in their country? After making these in¬ 
credible statements, the author goes right on and declares 
that, in order to check their fruitful increase, the king had 
the Hebrews oppressed in various ways; that he “ made 
tlieir lives bitter with hard bondage, in mortar, and in 
brick, and in all manner of service in the field;” that he 
required all their male infants to be slain, etc. The au¬ 
thor also informs us that the more the Hebrews were thus 
“afflicted, the more they multiplied and grew .” But is this 
last assertion at all credible? Do we not all know that 
afflictions always tend to retard, and never to promote the 
increase of population? 

Besides this, if, at the end of one hundred and two 
years after their arrival in Egypt, these wonderfully fruit¬ 
ful people had so increased that the “ land ” was already 
“filled with them,” and that they were already “ more and 
mightier ” than were the Egyptians; and if, as the Bible 
declares that they did, they still continued to increase in 
this unexampled manner, why did they submit, as the 
Bible also declares that they did, for at least one hundred 
and thirteen more years, to be the vilest of slaves to that 
fewer and less mighty people, the Egyptians ? Why did 
they, during all these years, tamely submit to see their 
male infants butchered, in cold blood, before their very 
eyes, by this fewer and weaker people? Is it credible that 
the “more” and the “ mightier ” would thus submit to the 
fewer and weaker ? Admitting, however, that they did sub¬ 
mit to all these monstrous outrages, did they deserve the 
name of men ? Having the power to be free, and refusing 
to exercise that power, proves conclusively that they pre¬ 
ferred the vilest of slavery to the fullest of liberty; and 
having the power to protect the lives of their male infants, 
and refusing to exercise that power, proves conclusively 
that they preferred to have those infants thus cruelly 


30G 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


butchered. What a frightful commentary this is upon the 
character of God’s chosen people ! But can a story be 
true, which thus brands a whole nation with being worse 
than brutes? So long as it has power to do so, even a 
swine will defend its own liberty, and the lives of its young. 
And were the Hebrews more degraded than swine? Was 
not the parental instinct the same in the Hebrews that it 
is in ourselves? And would we stand thus tamely by and 
see our infants butchered, in cold blood, by a weaker 
people ? 

The duty of destroying the male infants of the He¬ 
brews was, at first, assigned to Shiprah and Puah, two 
Hebrew midwives. These mid wives, however, having 
failed to satisfactorily perform this important duty, the 
king ordered all his people to destroy the male infants of 
the Hebrews whenever and wherever found. 

Some of the different systems of Bible chronology now 
in use have this infamous edict issued and put in force in 
the same year in which Joseph died, and only seventy-one 
years after Jacob’s arrival in Egypt. This places the date 
of that edict sixty-four years before the birth of Moses, 
and one hundred and forty-four years before the Exodus. 
Dr. Clarke, however, and some other able chronologists, 
correctly believing that seventy-one years from Jacob’s 
arrival in Egypt was rather too short a time in which for 
seventy Hebrews to become “more and mightier ” than the 
whole great Egyptian Nation, have very wisely, and very 
generously, placed the date of that edict thirty-one years 
after the death of Joseph, thus giving the Hebrews one 
hundred and two years in which to achieve their wonder¬ 
ful increase. This arrangement, which, to the champions 
of the Bible, is the most favorable one that could be made, 
and which is the one I shall adopt, places the date of the 
edict in question only thirty-three years before the birth 
of Moses, and only one hundred and thirteen years before 
the Exodus. 


THE EXODUS. 


30T 


Since, even according to this the most favorable arrange¬ 
ment of dates, the cruel edict in question had been rigidly 
enforced for the last one hundred and thirteen years of 
their sojourn in Egypt, it is evident that, with the excep¬ 
tion of the very few who were over one hundred and thir¬ 
teen years of age, the males, who went forth in what is 
called the Exodus, must have been only the comparatively 
few who, like Moses, had been successfully concealed dur¬ 
ing childhood. But from Ex. xii, 37, and Num. i, 45-47, we 
learn that, exclusive of those belonging to the tribe of 
Levi, there were, at the time of the Exodus, over six hun¬ 
dred thousand male Hebrews capable of bearing arms. 
And now, let me ask, is it at all within the bounds of 
reasonable credibility, that, among an enslaved people, 
living, for the most part, in tents, or in very small houses, 
in an extremely level and open country, so immense a 
number of male infants could have been successfully hid¬ 
den, during the entire period of their childhood, from the 
tens of thousands of Egyptian spies and detectives who 
would, undoubtedly, have been on the watch for them? 
Would not the various task-masters, and other officers, 
placed over them, have known of almost every case of 
childbirth among the Hebrew women of their respective 
charges? How, then, did so many male infants manage to 
escape ? 

I am aware that, in order to shorten as much as pos¬ 
sible the time during which the edict in question was in 
force, certain champions of the Bible place the date of 
this edict only six years before the birth of Moses, and 
only eighty-six years before the Exodus. This change of 
date, however, does not help the matter very much. All 
the men who escaped death, by being born before the 
edict was issued, must, of necessity, at the time of the 
Exodus, have been over eighty-six years of age, and, con¬ 
sequently, too old to be capable of bearing arms. That, 
immense army, therefore, of over six hundred thousand 
men capable of bearing arms, are still unaccounted for. 


308 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


In order to escape tlie difficulty involved in this matter, 
certain champions of the Bible assume that the cruel edict 
in question was not continued in force for many years 
after the birth of Moses. This mere assumption, how¬ 
ever, unsupported by a particle of evidence, amounts to 
nothing as an argument. We have not even the slightest 
intimation that the edict in question ever ceased to be 
enforced. On the contrary, the Bible plainly teaches 
that, so far from being diminished, the oppressions of the 
Hebrews were constantly increased during the entire 
remainder of their stay in Egypt. Indeed, since the Bible 
unqualifiedly declares that the more the Hebrews were 
“ afflicted , . . . the more they multiplied and grew” and 

since the killing of their infants was certainly one of 
the means by which they were afflicted , it was undeniably 
one of the means by which “they multiplied and grew .” 
WTiy, then, should the champions of the Bible wish to 
have the edict in question revoked at all? Why do they 
not boldly take up the Bible argument, and contend that, 
by the general killing of the male infants , the number of men, 
capable of bearing arms, was greatly increased? 

There is also another matter connected with this story, 
which the champions of the Bible would do well to ex¬ 
plain. This is the statement that, of all the Hebrews that 
went down into Egypt, only one in every thirty-five was a 
female. Now we very well know that, in all communities, 
consisting of a dozen or more families, the entire number 
of births of the one sex is always about the same as the 
entire number of the other. Is it at all credible, then, 
that, of a community consisting of fifteen or more families, 
over ninety-seven per cent, were males, and less than three 
per cent, females? How can the champions of the Bible 
account for this unparalleled and unnatural disproportion 
of the sexes? 

As I have already said, there were, at the time of the 
Exodus, over six hundred thousand Hebrews capable of 
bearing arms. Including the Levites, there were six hun- 


THE EXODUS. 


309 


(lred and twenty-five thousand eight hundred and fifty. 
This number capable of bearing arms, especially when we 
consider that these were only those who had been success¬ 
fully concealed from Pharaoh’s baby-killers, would indi¬ 
cate an entire population of about five million; and many 
theologians estimate them at about this number. Dr. 
Clarke estimates them at three million two hundred and 
sixty-three thousand, exclusive of a vast number of aged 
and infirm persons who were unable to travel on foot. 
His estimate is undoubtedly full low, and yet, to give my 
opponents all the advantages they can possibly ask, I will 
estimate the entire Hebrew population, at the time of the 
Exodus, at only three million souls. Indeed, we will find 
it sufficiently difficult, by the ordinary process of nature, to 
derive even this comparatively small number, from seventy 
persons, in the short space of two hundred and fifteen 
years; or, as Clarke gives it, in the still shorter space of 
one hundred and ninety-six years (Com. Ex. xii, 37). 

As to what the Hebrew population numbered, at the 
time the two midwives, Shiprah and Puah, were required 
to destroy all the new-born male infants, we have no cer¬ 
tain means of knowing. All the information we have upon 
the subject is that they were “ exceeding mighty that 
“the land was filled with them;’ > that -they were “more 
and mightier ” than were the whole great Egyptian Nation. 
Although indefinite, this information certainly indicates 
an immense population. Indeed, the ratio of increase 
that would give us from three to five millions, at the time 
of the Exodus, could not give us less than fifteen hundred 
thousand, at the time in question. Few Bible critics esti¬ 
mate them at less than this number; and hence I shall 
not be considered extravagant when I estimate them at 
this number. As we have already seen, the only question 
is in regard to the date at which the edict for the destruc¬ 
tion of the male infants was issued. In regard to this date 
the champions of the Bible are generally very inconsistent. 
When dealing with the question of the increase of popu- 


310 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


lation, they generally throw the date in question as far 
forward as possible, so as to give the Hebrews time, pre¬ 
vious to that date, to become “more and mightier” than 
the whole Egyptian Nation. When, however, they come 
to deal with the question of the killing of the male infants, 
then, on the contrary, they usually throw the date in ques¬ 
tion as far back as possible, so as to have a comparatively 
small population for the two midwives in question to deal 
with. Letting this pass, however, and putting the Hebrew 
population, at the time in question, at only one million 
five hundred thousand, let us see what we can do with 
them. 

Allowing an average of six persons to every family, we 
have two hundred and fifty thousand families; and allow¬ 
ing one birth every two years to each of the families, we 
have one hundred and twenty-five thousand births every 
year, or three hundred and forty every day. This would have 
given each of the two midwives in question an average of 
one hundred and seventy cases every day, or one case 
every eight minutes. Allowing the midwives to have 
labored only fifteen hours a day, they would have had one 
case every five minutes of their working hours. This cal¬ 
culation, you will notice, is based upon an assumed degree 
of fruitfulness which is not at all uncommon at the pres¬ 
ent day. As I shall presently show, however, the fruitful¬ 
ness of the Hebrews, during the whole period of their stay 
in Egypt, must have been at least five times greater than I 
have here assumed that it was. Each of the two mid¬ 
wives, therefore, must have one case of child-birth every 
minute of his working hours. This would have kept him 
quite busy, even if the births had all occurred in the same 
city, and exactly one minute apart. 

The Hebrews, however, were, for the most part, a pas¬ 
toral people, and, in order to find pasturage for their almost 
innumerable flocks and herds, they must, of necessity, 
have been scattered out over a vast extent of territory. Of 
the nine hundred or more cases of child-birth that each of 


THE EXODUS. 


311 


ihose two midwives was required to attend every day, 
many would liave occurred at the same moment, and in 
different parts of this extensive territory. Whenever the 
services of one of these midwives were required, he would 
have to be notified of the fact by a messenger, sent on foot, 
or, at best, on the back of an ass or of a camel. This mes¬ 
senger would frequently be many days, or even weeks, in 
following up and searching for the midwife whose services 
he desired to obtain, and who, of necessity, was constantly 
hurrying hither and thither, throughout the whole land of 
Egypt. When finally notified, the midwife would have to 
reach the place to which he was called, by such slow 
methods of travel as were then in use. It is little wonder, 
then, that, under circumstances so unfavorable to success, 
these two poor overworked midwives failed to satisfac¬ 
torily execute the king’s cruel order concerning the killing 
of all the male infants. It is no wonder that the Hebrew 
women were “ lively,” and that they were delivered before 
the midwives could “come in unto them.” The celebrated 
Hebrew scholar, Eben Ezra, estimates that the duties as¬ 
signed to these two midwives, would have required the 
services of at least five hundred midwives. 

All these difficulties would the two midwives in ques¬ 
tion have had to contend against, even if, as promptly as 
possible, they had been notified of all the cases in which 
their services were required. But would expectant par¬ 
ents have given any notice at all to those whose business 
was the killing of young infants? Would not such par¬ 
ents have carefully concealed the birth of their children 
from these professional baby-killers? How, then, could 
these midwives have known when and where to go to prac¬ 
tice their horrid profession? And would it have been 
safe for two midwives, or even for five hundred, to go 
prowling about, among an “ exceeding mighty ” people, 
for the express purpose of killing infants? Compelled, by 
their profession, to pass about the country singly, would 
they have long survived the vengeance of the people whose 


312 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


infants it was their trade to butcher? Would not each 
midwife have had to be attended, in all his journeyings, by 
an army of well-armed soldiers? Were not the Hebrews 
human beings? Was not human nature the same in them 
that it is in us? And how would it fare with two mid¬ 
wives, or with a thousand times that number, should they 
go prowling about among us, for the express purpose of 
butchering our new-born babes? Does not every parental 
—every human instinct declare this monstrous story to be 
a gross libel upon human nature ? Does not your own 
common sense teach you, too, that no king of Egypt, or of 
any other country, was ever so far gone in idiocy, as to 
seriously issue such an edict, and expect it to be executed? 
In defense of human intelligence, I will boldly say that 
those who believe this monstrous story are either fools, 
who cannot reason, or cowards, who dare not reason. 

In Gen. xv, 16, we read: “ But in the fourth genera¬ 
tion, they shall come hither again.” This was spoken to 
Abraham, concerning his posterity who, as God declared, 
were to be, for a time, oppressed in a foreign land, but 
who, “ in the fourth generation,” were to return and pos¬ 
sess the land in which Abraham then was. The genera¬ 
tion here mentioned could not have been the fourth from 
Abraham himself, since this generation went down into 
Egypt and died there. It could have been no other than 
the fourth generation of those whose lives were spent in 
Egypt. The first generation, therefore, in this count, con¬ 
sisted of Jacob’s fifty-two grandchildren, Hanoch, Phallu, 
Koliath, Merari, etc. The second generation consisted of 
the children of this generation, Amram, Izhar, Hebron, 
etc. The third generation consisted of the children of 
this generation, Aaron, Moses, Korah, etc. The fourth 
generation consisted of the children of this generation, 
Nadab, Abihu, Eleazar, Elkanah, and the great body of 
those who went out of Egypt with Moses. This view is 
sustained by over a dozen cases in which the four genera¬ 
tions are mentioned by name. 




THE EXODUS. 


313 


According to the most commonly accepted chronology 
of the Bible, these four generations covered a period of 
two hundred and fifteen years. I shall, therefore, use this 
estimate, as far more favorable to my opponents, although 
Clarke and some other able Bible critics make the period 
in question only one hundred and ninety-six years. Divid¬ 
ing two hundred and fifteen years equally between the 
four generations in question, gives to each fifty-three and 
three-quarters years. Some claim that this is too much 
time to allow to one generation. Be this as it may, fifty- 
three and three-quarters years are a good deal less than the 
average time covered by each of the four next preceding 
generations, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Jacob’s sons; and 
only a little over half the time covered, on an average, by 
each of all the generations back to Adam. Besides this, 
while we have a multitude of cases in which just four gen¬ 
erations are mentioned as covering the period in question, 
we have not a single case in which more than four are 
mentioned. Indeed, the plain language of the Bible for¬ 
bids us to increase this number of generations. Had six 
or seven generations been required to cover the period in 
question, then the Hebrews would, undeniably, have 
come out of Egypt in the sixth or the seventh generation, 
and not, as the Bible declares that they did, in the fourth. 

If, at the time of the Exodus, there were any of the 
first and the second generations living, their number must 
have been too small to be worth mentioning. Of the third 
generation, of which Moses and Aaron were representa¬ 
tives, there were, doubtless, a considerable number still 
living. The number of survivors, however, of this gen¬ 
eration, would scarcely have equaled the number ahead}?- 
deceased of the fourth. So the numbers already born of 
the fifth generation would not have more than equaled the 
numbers not yet born of the fourth. We may, therefore, 
safely reckon the whole three million who went out with 
Moses as representing the fourth generation alone. 

We have, then, given, the last term of a geometrical 


314 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


series, three million; the first term, fifty-two; and the 
number of terms, four, to find the ratio, or the number of 
children that had to spring from each individual of the 
first three generations in order to raise the fourth genera¬ 
tion to three million. Performing, upon these given quan¬ 
tities, the necessary operations, we find the required ratio 
of increase to have been thirty-nine to each individual, or 
seventy-eight to each married pair. This result we obtain 
by assuming that every individual born among the He¬ 
brews lived to maturity, and did his full duty in the great 
work of propagating his species. This assumption, how¬ 
ever, is evidently inadmissible. At the present time, when 
the population of Europe and America is increasing faster 
than ever before, scarce forty per cent, of all the individ¬ 
uals born ever live to become parents. Indeed, scarce 
seventy per cent, of them live to the close of their fifth 
year. Assuming, however, that, among the Hebrews, not¬ 
withstanding the wholesale destruction of their male 
infants, by the Egyptians, during a large portion of the 
time in question, sixty per cent, of all the individuals 
born, lived to become parents, each married pair w r ould 
have had to turn out one hundred and thirty children. 
And since, in all countries, the largest families always con¬ 
tain over twice the average number of children, the largest 
families among the Hebrews could hardly have contained 
less than three hundred children. 

This calculation is correct as applied to the whole 
twelve tribes of the Hebrews. The tribe of Dan, however, 
increased from one person of the first generation to three 
hundred and thirteen thousand five hundred of the fourth. 
Making the same calculation in this case that we made in 
the case of the entire people, we find that, on an average, 
each married pair had to produce two hundred and fifty 
children, and the largest families over five hundred. This, 
as you will readily admit, must have required something 
far superior to our own very popular, but extremely slow 
method of increasing population. Will the champions of 


THE EXODUS. 


315 


the Bible please inform ns what that superior method 
was? 

That the above results are very nearly correct is dem¬ 
onstrated by the fact that, as given in Num. iii, 43, the 
first born males, twenty-two thousand two hundred and 
seventy-three, constituted less than the one one-hundred- 
and-tliirtv-fourth part of the entire population. This 
would indicate an average of one hundred and thirty-four 
children to each family, while my calculation gives only 
one hundred and thirty. In regard to the first-born males, 
I will say that I have included among these all the first¬ 
born males, even in cases in which one female or more had 
preceded them. In this I am sustained by many of the 
ablest Bible critics. Other Bible critics, however, con¬ 
tend that no male child was reckoned a first-born male 
unless he was the first child that his mother ever bore. If 
this latter hypothesis be correct, and there were as many 
first-born females as there were first-born males, then the 
first-borns of both sexes would constitute the one sixty- 
seventh part of the entire population, and each woman 
could be let off with sixty-seven children. This is the 
very lowest possible number that we can let them off with, 
and, in doing this, we involve the absurd necessity of hav¬ 
ing over one hundred per cent, of the people engaged in 
producing children. In the tribe of Dan, each woman, on 
an average, would still have to bear one hundred and 
twenty-nine children, and the most prolific among them 
about three hundred children. Being well able to do so, 
I will accept these latter results, and let the poor women 
off with only one-half the children each that the Bible evi¬ 
dently means to have them bear. Even the minimum num¬ 
ber, however, of sixty-seven to every woman, indicates a 
degree of fecundity totally unwarrantable by the size of 
any Hebrew family mentioned in the whole Pentateuch, 
and wholly at variance with all the known laws of human 
reproduction. Even Kuertz admits that there is no escap¬ 
ing this difficulty, and, if I remember correctly what he 


316 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


says on the subject, he gives to each Hebrew woman a 
greater number of children than I have assigned to them 
above. Bishop Patrick also admits that each one of the 
Hebrew women would have had to bear the prodigious 
number of children above indicated. This fact, however, 
does not, in the least, shake his faith. With a simplicity 
that is truly refreshing, he meets the difficulty like a true 
Christian by assuming that, by the extraordinary blessing 
of God, those women brought forth six children at each 
birth. That would have been an extraordinary blessing 
with a vengeance, especially if half a dozen successive lit¬ 
ters had happened to be all males. In such a case, the 
mother, so extraordinarily blessed, would have had to keep 
thirty-six little boys closely concealed, and to nurse them 
only by stealth. Those enslaved Hebrews, who, without 
remuneration, had to work hard every day for their mas¬ 
ters, may have regarded such monstrous fecundity on the 
part of their wives an extraordinary blessing of God; but 
what would we think of it, if, in his infinite goodness, God 
should vouchsafe to our wives the truly extraordinary 
blessing of six babies each, every year, for a dozen or more 
consecutive years ? To say nothing of the expense of such 
families, how would we like, after a hard day’s work, tore- 
main awake all night giving soothing syrup, vermifuge, 
paregoric, catnip tea, etc., etc., etc., to six dozen squalling 
brats at once? Extraordinary blessing, indeed! 

From all that precedes, we would naturally infer that 
the Hebrews were noted for large families. Such, how¬ 
ever, does not seem to have been at all the fact. By three 
wives, Abraham had only eight children; by one wife,. 
Isaac had only two; and, by four wives, Jacob had only 
thirteen; this latter family being the largest mentioned in 
the whole Pentateuch. The family mentioned as next in 
size was that of Benjamin, who had ten children. By how 
many wives these were born, we are not informed. As¬ 
suming that they were all born by one wife, they consti¬ 
tute the highest number mentioned as being borne by one- 


THE EXODUS. 


317 


Hebrew mother. xVnd have not hosts of American and of 
European women done much better than this? Jacob’s 
whole thirteen children had only fifty-two children in all. 
This gave them an average of only four each. 

In Ex. vi, 14-26, we have, including Moses, thirteen 
men named whose united families contained only thirty- 
nine children, or an average of three each. In all, then, we 
have here thirty-two families containing in the aggregate 
only one hundred and fourteen children. This gives us an 
average of only between three and four to each family. 
Taking, at random, several other families, whose numbers 
are given, I find they average a little less than do the 
thirty-two which I have just noticed. Indeed, the one 
hundred and fourteen children, that I have just named, 
give less than three each to the mothers by whom they 
were borne. Assuming, however, that, on an average, the 
Hebrew families had six children each, who grew up, and, 
in their turn, became parents, we have for the fourth gen¬ 
eration in question only eleven thousand and sixteen 
persons, or less than the one two-liundred-and-seventy- 
second part of the number required by the Bible. In¬ 
deed, in order to obtain this comparatively insignificant 
number, we are compelled to allow fifty of Jacob’s fifty- 
two grandchildren to marry aliens, thus giving for the first 
generation one hundred and two persons, instead of only 
fifty-two, their real number as given in the Bible. 

And now, what will the champions of the Bible do with 
these difficulties? I have already shown that, if they at¬ 
tempt to increase the number of generations, they will 
simply give the lie to the book, the truth of which they 
wish to defend. Besides this, I have also shown that the 
number of first-borns, as compared to the entire popula¬ 
tion, demonstrates an average of at least sixty-seven chil¬ 
dren to each Hebrew mother. Without increasing the 
number of first-borns, we can neither increase the number 
of mothers, nor diminish the number of children borne by 
each one of them. No assumed increase of generations, 


318 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


therefore, even if the plain language of the Bible would 
permit such increase, could remove this difficulty. What 
say the champions of the Bible now? 

Insurmountable as these difficulties are, however, sev¬ 
eral far greater ones are yet to follow. From Ex. vi, 18-22, 
we learn that Kohath, the son of Levi, had four sons, all of 
whom seem to have had families. The names of these 
sons were Amram, Izhar, Uzziel, and Hebron. The first 
three had three children each. The last, Hebron, since 
his branch of the Kohath family did not become extinct, 
must have had children, although none are mentioned. 
We will assume that he had four, one more than had either 
of his three brothers. Of this generation of the Kohath- 
ites, then, there were thirteen persons. Of these thirteen 
persons, however, Miriam, the sister of Aaron and Moses, 
lived an old maid, and hence added nothing to the follow¬ 
ing generation, which was the one that went out of Egypt 
with Moses. That following generation, therefore, must 
have all proceeded from the remaining twelve persons of 
the generation now under consideration. Aaron and his 
four sons, however, being numbered as priests, were not 
numbered among the Levites. This leaves us only eleven 
persons to produce all that were numbered as Kohathites 
of the next generation. Of these eleven persons, one, 
Moses, had only two sons, and these are the only Amram- 
ites included in the next generation. Of this next genera¬ 
tion of the Kohathites, however, as we learn from Num. iv, 
28, there were eight thousand six hundred males from a 
month old and upward. Allowing that there were an 
equal number of females, the Kohathites over a month old 
numbered seventeen thousand two hundred. In this num¬ 
ber, Moses and his two children are included. Since there 
were doubtless several hundred infants under a month old 
who were not numbered at all, we may safely omit Moses 
and his two sons without diminishing the above number, 
which gives an average of one thousand seven hundred 
and twenty children to each of the ten remaining families. 


THE EXODUS. 


319 


And now, will the champions of the Bible please in¬ 
form us how it happened that Moses and Aaron, between 
them, had only six children, while each of their ten cousins 
had seventeen hundred and twenty? It may be answered 
that the God-favored institution of polygamy removes all 
difficulty from the solution of this question. So it might, 
if, instead of assuming that polygamy was extensively 
practiced by the ten Ivohathitic patriarchs in question, the 
champions of the Bible would prove that such was the 
fact. No such proof, however, can possibly be adduced. 
Indeed, the circumstances, surrounding the parties in 
question, rendered the practice of polygamy, on anything 
like an extensive scale, both undesirable and impracticable. 
Allowing each woman to have borne seventeen or eighteen 
children, each one of those Kohathites must have had a 
hundred wives. But is it at all within the bounds of 
credibility that abject slaves, as those Kohathites were, 
ever kept up harems equal to those of the most opulent 
eastern princes? How could a man, forced, by the lash of 
a task-master, to toil, every day, without remuneration, in 
a brick yard, have managed to support a family of nearly 
two thousand women and children? 

Besides this, why should these ten Kohathites have 
been so marked an exception to the general rule among 
the Hebrews of that period, who, as we have already seen, 
could not have practiced polygamy, to any considerable 
extent, without having thereby greatly increased the num¬ 
ber of first-borns? And if we entirely ignore the compar¬ 
atively small number of fir^t-borns, and assume that 
polygamy, on an extensive scale, prevailed also among the 
other Hebrews, then the question naturally arises, where 
could those Hebrews have obtained so many women to 
each man? Of those born Hebrews, the males seem 
always to have outnumbered the females. Admitting, 
however, that the two sexes were equal in number, there 
would have been barely Hebrew women enough to afford 
each Hebrew one wife. It is evident, therefore, that, for 


320 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


every Hebrew that had a hundred Hebrew wives, there 
must, of necessity, have been ninety-nine other Hebrews 
who had no Hebrew wives at all. It is clear, then, that, if 
only Hebrew women were used, nothing could have been 
gained by polygamy. Indeed, its effect would have been 
to produce a great loss. It is a well-known fact that, on 
an average, polygamous wives do not bear near so many 
children as do those women who live in monogamic mar¬ 
riage. A hundred women, all married to one man, would 
not bear more than one-fourth as many children as they 
would if each one of them had a husband to herself. 

If, then, polygamy was practiced, on a sufficiently ex¬ 
tensive scale to account for the unparalleled increase of 
the Hebrew population, it is evident that it must have 
been practiced principally upon gentile women ? But where 
could so many gentile women have been obtained? The 
Egyptians were the only gentiles with whom the Hebrews, 
at that time, had any dealings; and, being themselves a 
polygamous people, the Egyptians would certainly have 
wanted all of their own women for their own use. Besides 
this, the Egyptians were the masters of the country, while 
the Hebrews were the slaves. And is it all credible that 
these haughty Egyptian masters would give their proud 
and aristocratic sisters and daughters, by the hundreds of 
thousands, for polygamous purposes, to their vile and 
hated slaves, to whose increase they were doing their ut¬ 
most to put an effectual stop? Would not those masters, 
on the contrary, besides keeping all their own women for 
their own use, have been sure to take to themselves, for 
polygamous purposes, great numbers of the most beautiful 
of their female slaves? Has not such always been the 
custom, in all countries in which slavery and polygamy 
have ever existed? What could be more extremely ab¬ 
surd, then, than is the assumption that those Hebrew 
slaves entirely reversed this universal custom, by keeping 
all their own women for their own use, and by also appro¬ 
priating to their own use, for polygamous purposes, vast 


THE EXODUS. 


321 


numbers of tlie sisters and the daughters of their mas¬ 
ters? Had they taken all the Egyptian women, they would 
have had only two wives each, and this would not do 
much to remove the difficulties in question. 

Thus you see that their favorite doctrine of polygamy 
is of no avail to the champions of the Bible. Indeed, al¬ 
though I am very sorry to deprive them of this favorite 
doctrine, from which they appear to derive so much con¬ 
solation, I will now prove to these champions that, at the 
time of which we are speaking, the Hebrews did not prac¬ 
tice polygamy to any considerable extent; and that, to 
whatever extent it may have been practiced among them, 
this institution was of no service to them in the increasing 
of their population. As I have already stated, there were, 
at the time of the Exodus, six hundred and twenty-five 
thousand eight hundred and fifty Hebrews capable of 
bearing arms; and, since there must have been vast num¬ 
bers of men, incapacitated, by age or other infirmities, for 
bearing arms, we may safely estimate the entire adult male 
population at not less than seven hundred thousand. But 
how many of these were husbands and fathers? We will 
ascertain. As I have likewise already stated, the entire 
number of first-born males was only twent}-two thousand 
two hundred and seventy-three. Allowing an equal 
number of first-born females, we have in all only forty-four 
thousand five hundred and forty-six first-borns of both 
sexes: and, since every woman who had borne children 
at all, must have had a first-born, of one sex or the other, 
the entire number of first-borns must have exactly equaled 
the entire number of women who, as yet, had borne chil¬ 
dren at all. If any of these forty-four thousand five hun- 
hundred and forty-six mothers were polygamous wives, 
then we have less than forty-four thousand five hundred 
and forty-six Hebrews who were husbands and fathers, and 
over six hundred and fifty-five thousand four hundred and 
fiftv-four who were celibates, or who, at least, had, as yet, 
had no children borrn These figures would indicate that 


322 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


only about one man in every fifteen of tlie Hebrews had 
even one wife. Before making polygamists of them, then, 
would not the champions of the Bible do well, to furnish 
one wife each to the remaining fourteen-fifteenths of the 
Hebrew men? Finally, can this whole monstrous story 
be true which involves so many palpable absurdities, and 
which drives its champions to so many totally unwarrant¬ 
able, and yet utterly unavailable assumptions? 

According to the story under consideration, Pharaoh 
often consented, and in good faith, too, to let the Hebrews 
depart out of Egypt. On each of these occasions, how¬ 
ever, he was immediately compelled, by the irresistible 
power of God himself, to recall that generous consent. 
Indeed, this unfortunate king is represented as being noth¬ 
ing more nor less than a helpless instrument in the hands 
of the Almighty. If, then, any wrong was done to the He¬ 
brews, by means of this instrument, who was guilty of that 
wrong, the instrument, or the one who made and wielded 
that instrument? 

The reason assigned for God’s acting as he did, on the 
occasions in question, is that, for the express purpose of 
gaining personal notoriety, he wished to play, upon the 
Egyptians and their cattle, a number of really wonderful, 
and yet exceedingly cruel tricks, several of which he alone 
knew how to perform. On various occasions, he pledged 
his honor as a God that he would harden Pharaoh’s heart, 
and would then, by means of Pharaoh thus hardened, per¬ 
form certain acts which should be very beneficial to the 
Hebrews, and which should secure to himself the noto¬ 
riety, or “ honor,” as he was pleased to call it, which he so 
greatly desired. If, then, on any of these occasions, Pha¬ 
raoh had been able to successfully resist God’s heart-hard¬ 
ening powers, what would have been the consequence? 
"Would not God have been proved a liar? Would not his 
whole programme have proved a failure? Did not Pha¬ 
raoh, then, act just as God desired that he should act? 
Would not God have been ruined, or at least greatly dis- 


THE EXODUS. 


323 


graced, by any other action on Pharaoh’s part? Was not 
the role assigned to Pharaoh just as necessary, in God’s 
drama, as was that assigned to Moses ? Why, then, should 
Pharaoh have been so cruelly punished, and Moses so 
richly rewarded, when both were equally doing God’s will? 

Be all this as it may, however, the Bible declares that 
God did inflict the most terrible punishments, not only 
upon Pharaoh himself, but also upon all the people and all 
the cattle of Egypt. The Bible further declares that these 
punishments were indicted upon the people and the cattle, 
not for anything that they had done, but for what God 
himself had done, through the instrumentality of his crea¬ 
ture, Pharaoh, whom he declares that he raised up for the 
express purpose of doing these things. In a future lecture, 
entitled “ The Miracles of the Bible,” I will notice these 
various punishments in full. The last one of them, except 
the drowning of Pharaoh and his army in the Bed Sea, 
was the killing of all the drst-borns both of the people and 
the cattle. This killing was a terrible calamity especially 
to the poor cattle, all of which, only a few days before, had 
already died of murrain, and most of which had also al¬ 
ready died a second time from the effects of a terrific hail¬ 
storm. The more fortunate of these first-borns, therefore, 
were now destroyed for the second time; the less fortu¬ 
nate for the third. 

The time appointed for the accomplishment of this 
horribly cruel and wholly unnecessary destruction of men 
and of cattle, was the midnight of the fourteenth day of 
the first month. Midnight was certainly a very appropri¬ 
ate hour to fix upon for the commission of so many horri¬ 
ble murders. Having fixed upon the hour for the commis¬ 
sion of this infinitely monstrous outrage upon his own 
children, the Egyptians, God required the Hebrews to- 
mark all of their houses with spots of blood. Of these 
spots, there were to be just three: one on the lintel, andl 
one on each of the side posts of the door. The express; 
design of these spots was to enable God to distinguish be- 


324 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tween the houses of the Hebrews and those of the Egyp¬ 
tians. In requiring this marking to be done, God clearly 
admitted that, without some such marks, he would not be 
able, in the darkness of night, to distinguish between the 
two classes of houses. How he managed, without a sign, 
to distinguish between the cattle of the Hebrews and those 
of the Egyptians, we are not informed. Neither are we 
informed how he managed to know, in all cases, which 
persons were, and which were not, first-borns. 

God’s orders concerning the marking of their doors 
seem to have been communicated, almost instantly, to the 
entire Hebrew population, who were strictly forbidden to 
go outside of the houses, during the whole of that mem¬ 
orable night on which all the first-borns of the Egyptians 
were to be murdered. These orders were communicated 
by Moses; but how he managed, in so short a time, to 
-communicate them to a population of at least three mill¬ 
ion of people, scattered, as they must have been, over a 
large extent of country, we are not informed. 

As you are all doubtless well aware, the Hebrews were 
peculiarly a pastoral people, depending for subsistence 
almost entirely upon their immense flocks and herds of 
domesticated animals. The Hebrews, moreover, although 
originally occupying only the land of Goshen, seem, at the 
time of which we are speaking, to have been promiscu¬ 
ously scattered over the whole country, among the Egyp¬ 
tians, who also possessed immense flocks and herds, and 
who, as usually estimated, numbered about seven million 
souls. According to this estimate, all Egypt contained 
about ten million inhabitants. Putting the Egyptians, 
however, at only three million, we still have at least six 
million people, and these, with their immense flocks and 
herds, would have certainly required a country two hun¬ 
dred miles square, or as large as the state of Ohio. 

That the Hebrews were thus promiscuously inter¬ 
mingled with the Egyptians, throughout the whole coun¬ 
try, we learn from the fact that even God himself could 


THE EXODUS. 


325 


not, in the darkness of the night, without a sign, distin¬ 
guish the houses of the one people from those of the other. 
Had the Hebrews lived apart from the Egyptians, no such 
sign would have been necessary. We also obtain the same 
information from the fact that many of the Egyptians 
were guests in the houses of Hebrews, and from the addi¬ 
tional fact that, in the latter part of one night, all the 
Egyptian families were plundered by their Hebrew neigh¬ 
bors. See Ex. iii, 22; xi, 2, and xii, 35, 36. This wholesale 
plundering of their Egyptian neighbors, by individual 
Hebrew families, could not possible have been accomplished, 
in so short a time, had not the two peoples been promis¬ 
cuously intermingled. 

It is evident, then, that the country over which the 
Hebrews were scattered must have been sufficiently exten¬ 
sive to furnish sustenance both for themselves and the 
Egyptians, and pasturage for the united flocks and herds 
of these two peoples. It would certainly be unreasonable 
therefore, to crowd all these people, with their flocks and 
herds, into an area less than that which we have assumed. 
Even this area must have been greatly crowded. Every 
square mile must have contained at least one hundred and 
fifty persons, together with their flocks and herds, and this 
is a far more dense population than any pastoral country 
was ever known to contain. Assuming, however, that the 
entire population of these two nations, together with their 
flocks and herds, were all crowded into the small space to 
which we have assigned them; assuming, too, that the 
shape of this space was the most favorable that it could 
possess, and that the capital, Rameses, occupied its center, 
we still have many of the people living one hundred miles 
or more from that city. At that time, there were no 
telegraphs, no railroads, no means of sending speedy 
messages. All information had to be carried by private 
messengers, on foot, or, at best, on the backs of donkeys, 
horses, or camels. How, then, did Moses, in so short a 
time, manage to communicate to the whole people so many 


326 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


and so minute instructions concerning the killing, the 
dressing, the cooking and the eating of the paschal lambs, 
the marking of the doors, the plundering of the Egyptians, 
etc., etc. ? 

At that time, there were no printing-presses, by means 
of which these numerous instructions could be published 
to the people. Every family, therefore, must have re¬ 
ceived them either verbally or in writing. If verbally, 
how many messengers were required to carry them, and 
who repeated over and over, to each of these messengers, 
until he had thoroughly committed them to memory, the 
names and the places of abode of all the families that he 
-was to visit, together with the long list of instructions 
which he was to communicate? How long did it take 
each messenger to make the ignorant people understand 
exactly what they were to do? After half a dozen repeti¬ 
tions of these instructions, to each family, would one in 
ten of the intensely excited people have remembered them 
correctly? If, on the other hand, those instructions were 
sent in writing, who wrote them, what did he write them 
upon, how long did it take him, how many copies did he 
write, and who read them to the unlettered people to 
whom they were sent? The story is told as if the people 
all lived within three or four miles at most from Pharaoh’s 
palace, near which Moses seems to have lived. 

Besides all these things, does it not seem very strange 
that not the slightest curiosity, suspicion, or alarm seems 
to have been excited in the minds of the Egyptians by 
this general sending out of messengers, this general killing 
of a lamb at the same time by every Hebrew family, and 
by this general and uniform marking of all their doors ? 
It was utterly impossible for all these things to have been 
done without being seen by the Egyptians, many of whom, 
as we have already seen, were, at that very time, guests in 
the houses of Hebrew families who were engaged in these 
mysterious proceedings ? Would not the Egyptian guests, 
in many of these cases, have inquired of the Hebrew 


THE EXOI)US. 


327 


friends with whom they were residing, the meaning of these 
mysterious proceedings? And would not many of the 
nobler souls among the Hebrews have warned of their im¬ 
pending danger those whom they truly loved of these 
guests, and of other Egyptians ? To say that they would 
not have done this, is a base libel upon human nature in 
general, and upon Hebrew nature in particular. Ask the 
true woman, who loves with all the unutterable devotion 
of her nature, whether, knowing that her lover’s life was 
about to be treacherously taken, she would wait and see 
him murdered, without giving him a word of warning? 
And were there not bound to be thousands of such love 
unions existing between Hebrew maidens and Egyptian 
men ? Could any but a female fiend see her lover perish 
without making any effort to save him ? And were the 
Hebrew women all fiends ? 

It may be answered, however, that the Egyptians had 
no need of any warning from their Hebrew friends; that 
they had been sufficiently warned by Moses, and that they 
all knew that this was the night appointed for the destruc¬ 
tion of their first-borns. Admitting that such was the fact, 
however, do we not thereby greatly increase the incredi¬ 
bility of the whole story ? Were not the Egyptians a very 
superstitious people*? Had they not already, within a few 
weeks, suffered ten of the most strange and horrible 
plagues ? Had not all of these plagues come upon them 
exactly as Moses had predicted that they would? Would 
not the Egyptians, by this time, have come to regard 
plagues as the order of the day? Would they not, inev¬ 
itably, have been in constant dread of other impending 
evils ? Is it at all credible, then, that these unfortunate 
people, though fully warned of it, should have been thus 
totally indifferent to this new and awful calamity ? Had 
any of the predictions of Moses ever failed ? And could 
the Egyptians have expected this prediction to fail ? If 
not, would they all have quietly retired to rest, on the night 
in question, as the Bible teaches that they did, without 


328 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


feeling a particle of interest in so momentous a matter ? 
Would not many of them have taken the precaution to 
mark their doors, as the Hebrews were marking theirs ? 
And would not many others have taken refuge, during that 
fearful night, in the houses of their Hebrew friends? 
With all our boasted freedom from fear and superstition,, 
what would we have done under similar circumstances ? 
And was not the love of life just as strong in those Egyp¬ 
tians as it is in us ? What became of those Egyptian first¬ 
borns who did happen to be sojourning in Hebrew houses ? 
Since God had his destroying angel pass over all these 
houses, must not all such first-borns have escaped destruc¬ 
tion? And what had the first-borns done, more than 
others, that they were thus made the special objects of 
God’s fearful vengeance ? Was it a crime to be a first¬ 
born ? If not, was there not something very unjust in tho 
discrimination which was made against them? Finally, 
after killing all of these first-borns, did God take their 
souls all to heaven, or send them all to hell ? 

Be all these things as they may, however, we have 
three million Hebrews, scattered all over an extensive 
country, shut up in their houses at.midnight; and all that 
I am about to relate of them from this midnight until they 
were out of Egypt, is represented as having occurred dur¬ 
ing the remainder of that same night, or, at least, during 
the remainder of the day of which that night was a part. 
Let us see, then, how they managed to accomplish so 
much in so short a time. 

Putting the entire population of the country at only 
six million, and allowing ten persons to each house, we 
have six hundred thousand houses to be visited, at mid¬ 
night, by the angel of death. As everybody admits, this 
angel was a finite being, and, consequently, could visit only 
one house at a time. In making his six hundred thousand 
calls, he must have traveled at least four hundred thou¬ 
sand miles. At every one of these six hundred thousand 
houses, he had to stop and carefully examine the door* 


THE EXODUS. 


329 


Every house, upon the door of which he found three spots 
of blood properly placed, he passed over without doing its 
inmates any harm. Every house, however, upon the door 
of which he found no such spots of blood, he entered, as¬ 
certained which one of its inmates was the first-born, and 
slew him. How he managed, in all cases, to distinguish 
the first-born, we are not informed. This is perhaps one 
of the “mysteries of godliness.” 

Thus far, we have taken into our account only the hu¬ 
man beings with whom this bloody angel had to deal. We 
must not forget, however, that he also had to slay all the 
first-borns of the sheep, the goats, the camels, the cattle of 
all kinds. In order to do this, he had to visit every stable, 
cowshed, and slieepfold in all Egypt. Besides this, he 
had to search every square rod of pasture land in an area 
of forty thousand square miles. Some writers make the 
area in question over two hundred thousand square miles. 
Whatever the area may have been, however, he must have 
had to search every spot in it large enough to contain a 
sheep, a goat, or any other domestic animal. Having 
found all the cattle of every locality, he had to ascertain to 
which people they belonged. Then, of those belonging to 
the Egyptians, he had to ascertain which ones were first¬ 
borns, and slay them. How he managed, in all cases, to 
correctly determine the ownership of the cattle, and which 
ones were first-borns, we are not informed. This is proba¬ 
bly another of the “ mysteries of godliness.” 

When we take all these domestic animals into our cal¬ 
culation, we may safely extend the distance traveled by the 
angel in question to one million miles, and the number of 
calls made by him to one million five hundred thousand. 
He must have examined six hundred thousand doors, 
counted nine hundred thousand spots of blood, and slain, 
of men and of beasts, at least six hundred thousand first¬ 
borns. Had he been at this foul, bloody work all the first 
half of the night, it could not have been said, as it is. that 
all the first-borns were slain “ at midnight.’ 1 Giving him 


330 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


one hour—and this is more than the Bible seems to give 
him—in which to perform all of this work, he had to 
travel nearly seventeen thousand miles a minute, examine 
ten thousand doors, count fifteen thousand spots of blood, 
and slay ten thousand first-borns. But could any finite 
being accomplish so much in so short a time ? 

Admitting, however,that all these things did occur “at 
midnight,” Pharaoh could not possibly have known that 
the calamity was a general one—that “there was not a 
house where there was not one dead,” until reports had 
reached him from all parts of Egypt, and from every 
house; and however rapidly the angel of death may have 
performed his work, these reports could not possibly have 
reached the king with any such speed. They had to be 
brought in by human messengers, who were not awakened 
from their slumbers till after midnight, and who then had 
to arise, dress themselves, ascertain the extent of the 
calamity they were to report, and then, in the darkness of 
night, start out with their report, on foot, or on the backs 
of donkeys, horses, or camels. For every family to have 
sent a messenger, would have required three hundred 
thousand messengers, and for Pharaoh to have heard the 
reports of so many would have required more time than 
we can afford to give him for this purpose. If every ten 
families sent a messenger, there would have been only 
thirty thousand messengers, and Pharaoh could have 
heard them in one-tenth of the time that would have been 
required to hear the reports of three hundred thousand 
messengers. In this case, however, it would have taken 
some time, especially in the more distant and sparsely set¬ 
tled districts, for so many families to assemble, hold their 
consultation, elect their messenger, etc. What we gain, 
therefore, in one way, by diminishing the number of mes¬ 
sengers, we lose in another. This is very unfortunate, 
since time was everything on that most wonderful night of 
the world. 


THE EXODUS. 


331 


Some of these messengers had to travel over a hundred 
miles to reach the king’s palace; and yet, before starting, 
each one of them had to ascertain that all the first-borns 
of his own and of his neighbors’ children and cattle -were 
slain. Allowing each messenger thirty minutes in which 
to arise, to dress himself, to visit all his stables, cow-sheds, 
and pastures, to hear the reports of his neighbors, and 
reach the king’s palace, we have half after twelve o’clock 
on that wonderful night. 

Having received all the reports of the thirty thousand 
or more messengers, and having by means of these reports 
learned the extent of the calamity, Pharaoh at once sent 
for Moses and Aaron, and held with them a final consulta¬ 
tion. Since we cannot reasonably suppose that Moses and 
Aaron resided in the palace, or even in its immediate 
vicinity, we must, of course, allow the messenger who went 
to call them to the palace, a little time to reach their place 
of abode, wherever that was. We must also, of course, 
allow Moses and Aaron a little time in which to arise, to 
make their toilets, to reach the palace, to hold their con¬ 
ference with the king, and to return to their own people. 
Allowing thirty minutes for all these things, we have one 
o’clock on that memorable night. Between this time and 
morning, or, at farthest, between this time and the next 
evening, the whole three million Hebrews, scattered all 
over a vast extent of country, and all as yet locked in the 
arms of slumber, had to receive warning that the time of their 
departure was at hand. After being warned, they had to 
arise, dress themselves and their little ones, make up 
dough in their troughs, bundle up their clothes, dig up 
dead men’s bones to carry with them, collect their cattle 
from the pastures, make litters upon which to carry their 
sick, rob all their Egyptian neighbors, march to Bameses— 
in many cases over a hundred miles distant—form regular 
organizations, elect officers, and then march beyond the 
boundaries of Egypt. Since they marched out of Egypt “ on 
the self-same day ” on which the first-borns of the Egyp- 


332 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tians were slain, they must have accomplished all these 
things within that “ self-same day.” But how did they 
manage to accomplish so much in so short a time ? In my 
next lecture, I will consider these matters in full. 


LECTURE TENTH. 

THE EXODUS.—(CONCLUDED.) 

After one o’clock, on the wonderful night of which I 
was speaking in my last lecture, Moses and Aaron must 
have sent out messengers to warn in the Hebrews, from all 
parts of Egypt. But how many messengers must have 
been required for this purpose ? If a very great number, 
then it must have required a long time for Moses and 
Aaron to give them all their instructions; and if only a 
small number, then each one of them must have had allot¬ 
ted to him a far greater number of families than he could 
possibly visit in the extremely short time allowed him for 
this purpose. One thousand messengers would have been 
about as convenient a number as could have been em¬ 
ployed. Let us assume, then, that this was the number 
that were employed, and that Moses and Aaron each gave 
instructions to five hundred of them. 

Each of these messengers would have had to warn 
three hundred families. The names and the places of 
abode of all these families, therefore, together with the 
instructions which he was to convey to them, must have, 
been either given to the messenger in writing, or else 
repeated over and over to him until they were indellibly 
fixed in his memory. In order to thus instruct each of 
these messengers, Moses and Aaron must have had upon 
their books, or firmly fixed in their memories, the name 
and the place of abode of every one of the three hundred 
thousand Hebrew families. 

To any one who is at all acquainted with such matters, 
it is evident that Moses and Aaron would have required at 



THE EXODUS. 


333 


least fifteen days in which to thus separately instruct and 
send out five hundred messengers each. Assuming, how¬ 
ever, that each of these two great leaders instructed and 
sent out one messenger every three seconds, we have all 
the messengers off in twenty-five minutes, and we can give 
them thirty-five minutes in which to do all their work. 
During this time, each messenger would have had to warn 
about nine families a minute, and many of them would 
have had to travel at least that many miles a minute. 

It was now two hours past midnight, and the whole 
three millions Hebrews were astir. Unavoidably the most 
intense excitement prevailed. Called upon, at a moment’s 
notice, to quit thus, at the dead hours of the night, the 
homes in which they had been born, they could not pos¬ 
sibly get off without some delay and much confusion. 
They had to dress themselves and their children, make up 
large quantities of dough to carry with them in wooden 
troughs, collect their clothes into bundles convenient for 
carrying, bury all those that had died the day before, make 
litters on which to carry their sick, collect their flocks and 
herds from the pastures, plunder all of their Egyptian 
neighbors, and do a thousand other things equally neces¬ 
sary. Giving them one hour for all these things, we have 
three hours after midnight. 

In a population so vast and so rapidly increasing, there 
must have been at least four hundred cases of child-birth 
every day, and at least fifty women in actual travail at any 
one moment. For the women who cljanced to be thus in 
travail, at the time the notice to depart reached them, 
there was not a moment to wait. Those of them who 
could still walk had to do so, and the balance had to be 
carried on litters. The babes of all these women, and of 
at least four hundred other women each successive day, 
had to be born and cared for on the march. Besides 
these women, there must have been, at any one time, at 
least five thousand women who had borne children within 
the last fortnight, and who were not yet able to march. 


334 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Of course, all these, too, had to be carried. Including 
these, the sick, the cripples, the extremely aged persons, 
the young children, and others who were unable to march 
on foot, could not have been less than two hundred thou¬ 
sand, or one in every fifteen of the entire population. On 
such a march, at the present day, one in every five of the 
entire population, of the most hardy people known, would 
have to be carried. Being an enslaved people, they had 
no wagons, and few if any asses, horses, and camels. All 
writers agree that nearly everything must, of necessity, 
have been carried on the backs of men. The men, then, 
loaded down with bundles of clothes, troughs of dough, 
little children, sick people, etc., etc., had to rush their 
flocks and herds before them, through the darkness of 
night, at a rate, in many cases, of over one hundred miles 
an hour, in order to reach the place of rendezvous by four 
o’clock. 

Three millions of people, with at least an equal num¬ 
ber of cattle, all rushing in thus, at four times the speed 
of an express train on our railroads, must have caused the 
earth to quake for a great distance, and must have pro¬ 
duced a noise far exceeding in loudness the most awful thun¬ 
der of heaven’s tremendous artillery. If the night was dark 
half a million torches, flashing like meteors inward from 
all directions, must have lit up the whole country, like a 
vast conflagration, and added immensely to the grandeur 
of a scene which was already by far the grandest the 
world had ever known. It was now four o’clock, and, 
without a moment’s rest after their wonderful race, these 
wonderful people had to organize in proper order, and 
march out of Egypt during the remaining hour of that 
wonderful night (Ex. xii, 42). 

From the most careful calculations that I can make, a 
promiscuous mass of three million people, and as many 
cattle, marching on any ordinary public highway, would 
form a column at least six hundred miles in length. Allow¬ 
ing the road on which the Hebrews traveled to have 


THE EXODUS. 


335 


been six times as wide as are our ordinary public high¬ 
ways, that mighty multitude of people and of cattle would 
still have formed a column at least one hundred miles in 
length, and the front would have had to move out that 
many miles before the rear could move at all. A column 
of this length, however, would have reached many miles 
beyond the Red Sea. This order of march, therefore, will 
never do. We must make the column many times wider 
and many times shorter. In doing this, however, we ren¬ 
der it necessary to have the march made across the 
country without regard to roads. Allowing that one thou¬ 
sand two hundred individuals marched abreast, the front 
and the rear of that mighty multitude might not have been 
more than ten miles apart; and though there is no proof 
at all that they marched in any such order as this, the 
assumption that they did so is probably about the best 
that could be made. 

How far the entire body of the Hebrews had to march 
in order to be out of Egypt, we do not know with any cer¬ 
tainty. The distance is variously computed at from fifty 
to over eighty miles. Let the distance have been what it 
may, however, the Hebrews are represented as having 
marched that distance, and out of Egypt on “ the self¬ 
same day” on which they ate the passover; or, rather, as 
I have already shown, on that very same night. When, 
however, we attempt to accomplish so much in so short a 
time, we find ourselves in the condition of the man who 
undertook to set a hundred eggs under one hen. Having 
tried the experiment upon a round nest, he perceived that 
a large number of eggs on one side of the hen were not 
covered. He therefore took hold of the hen and moved 
her toward that side of the nest. By this movement, how¬ 
ever, he uncovered an equal number of eggs on the other 
side. After several more moves, all with the same result, 
he concluded that there must be something wrong in the 
shape of the nest. He therefore changed its shape, mak¬ 
ing it much longer and not near so wide. Having again 


336 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


placed tlie lien upon it, lie perceived that a large number 
of eggs in front of her were uncovered. He therefore took 
her by the neck and drew her forward upon those eggs. 
By this act, however, he left an equal number of eggs un¬ 
covered behind her. He therefore took her by the tail and 
drew her back upon these eggs. By this movement, how¬ 
ever, the eggs in front of her were left uncovered as before. 
Having repeated these movements several times, always 
with the same result, he stood for a moment, with arms 
akimbo, looking sadly upon the little hen and the mon¬ 
strous nest. Then, in utter desperation, he looked the 
hen imploringly in the face, and cried: “Speck! Speck! 
spread yourself! ” And thus will it be with us, if we at¬ 
tempt to make one night, or even one whole day and night, 
cover all the events that the Bible makes it cover. If we 
grant time enough for one thing, we have no time at all 
left for anything else. Our little hen can never be so 
spread as to make her cover so many eggs. The cham¬ 
pions of the Bible may cry, “Humbug! Infidelity,” etc., 
but, so far from removing the difficulties with which this 
whole story is beset, these cries simply prove the impo¬ 
tence and the ill manners of the desperate men who use 
them. Even Kuertz, one of the ablest champions the Bible 
ever had, speaking of certain matters involved in this 
story, frankly exclaims: “We candidly confess that our 
faith will not reach so far as this.” 

In order, so far as possible, to obviate the difficulties 
of the fabulous march in question, certain champions of 
the Bible assume that Egypt did not then extend to the 
Bed Sea, and that, consequently, the Hebrews may have 
been out of Egypt when only a few miles from Bameses, 
the place from which they started. These champions, 
however, fail to tell us what country it was, which, upon 
their assumption, must have intervened between Egypt 
and the Bed Sea. They would like to place Bameses 
within a few miles of the Bed Sea, and thus save the 
necessity of assuming an unnamed intervening country. 


THE EXODUS. 337 

This, however, they cannot do, since it is known that 
Eameses was situated on the Nile, which, in no place, is 
less than eighty miles from the Eed Sea, and which, from 
the nature of the country, could never have been any 
nearer than it now is. 

Wherever the eastern boundary of Egypt may have 
been, it is now commonly held that, although the Hebrews 
marched out of Egypt on “ the self-same day,” on the eve 
of which they ate the first paschal lamb, they were three 
days in reaching the Eed Sea. This would have required 
a daily march of at least twenty-six miles; and, by so 
vast a mixed multitude, all loaded with plunder, no such 
march could ever have been performed. Their journey 
was over a burning desert, and even if the people could 
have made the journey in so short a time, the sheep cer¬ 
tainly could not. Indeed, as every drover knows, so 
immense a number of domestic animals could never have 
been driven, in a single body, over such a country at all. 

I shall first show that it was utterly impossible for the 
Hebrews and their live stock to reach the Eed Sea in so 
short a period as three days. I shall then show that it 
was equally impossible for them to subsist in such a desert 
for a longer period than three days. Having shown these 
things, I will have shown that no such march, of so 
immense a multitude of y^eople and of cattle, was ever per¬ 
formed at all. 

Tischendorf, and certain other champions of the Bible, 
admit that the Hebrews could not possibly have reached 
the Eed Sea in three days. These champions, therefore, 
are of the opinion that, although to small parties well 
mounted the distance was regarded as only a three days’ 
journey, the Hebrews were necessarily many more days in 
passing over it; that they doubtless rested whole days at 
a time. This would indeed have given them more time in 
which to perform the journey, but it would have fearfully 
increased the time during which they must have subsisted 
upon that terrible desert. In Ex. xii, 39, we read : “ And 


338 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


they baked unleavened cakes of the dough which they 
brought forth out of Egypt, for it was not leavened: 
because they were thrust out of Egypt, and could not 
tarry, neither had they prepared for themselves any 
victual.” In order to be thus “ brought forth out of Egypt,” 
the dough in question must, of necessity, have been car¬ 
ried beyond the boundaries of that country. This dough, 
too, was evidently the only food the people had in that 
first part of their journey. But, in such a climate, dough 
becomes putrid and totally unfit for food long before the 
end of three days. It is evident, then, that, even if the 
people had started with more than three days’ rations of 
dough, they could not, after the expiration of that many 
days, have used it for food. If, then, they were more than 
three days performing that portion of their journey, upon 
what did they subsist? And how did the immense flocks 
and herds subsist, for which no food at all was carried, and 
which could have found little, if any, herbage to eat upon 
that desert? 

In London the births average one every four minutes, 
and the deaths one every six minutes. Other things being 
equal, then, the Hebrews, who in numbers were just about 
equal to the inhabitants of London, must have had about 
the same number of births and deaths daily that the Lon¬ 
doners now have. This estimate would give us for every 
day, among the Hebrews, about four hundred births and 
nearly three hundred deaths. As I have already shown, 
however, the birth rate among these wonderful people 
must have been several times greater than is that among 
any people now upon the earth. This very high birth 
rate, too, must have been for a time considerably increased 
by the many abortions or untimely births brought on by 
the numerous accidents and the fearful hardships to 
which the women were unavoidably exposed during so 
sudden and so terrible a flight, for which they were totally 
unprepared. I think, therefore, that no one will regard 
my estimate as an extravagant one when I put the number 


THE EXODUS. 


339 


of births among the Hebrews during each of those terrible 
days at one thousand. This would have been an average 
of about two births every three minutes; and since so vast 
a moving mass could not possibly have stopped for each 
case, all the women who were involved in these cases must, 
of necessity, have either performed the painful duty of 
bringing forth their children while being carried right 
onward through the suffocating dust and the withering 
heat, or else have stopped by the roadside, brought forth 
their children in haste, and then been hurried forward on 
the backs of their friends to their proper places in the 
ranks. 

On our present estimate, there must have been at any 
one time, at least twenty thousand women who were unable 
to march upon foot by reason of recent or of approaching 
childbirth. All these women, together with hundreds of 
thousands of young children, cripples, sick persons, etc., in 
addition to the dough-troughs, the clothing, etc., must, 
have been carried on the backs of the young and the 
strong. 

The death rate, too, must have been fearfully increased 
by the exhausting fatigue of the forced marches, the suffo¬ 
cating clouds of dust that must have constantly filled the 
air, the withering heat of a tropical desert, the wasting 
hunger and thirst, the loss of sleep, the thousand ills to 
which so vast a mixed multitude, totally unused to travel, 
must inevitably have been exposed, when thus thrust out, 
without any preparation at all, and forced to flee, with so 
great speed, across so extensive and so fearfully inhospit¬ 
able a region. Under such circumstances, the deaths 
would undoubtedly have greatly outnumbered the births. 
Indeed, since, during the whole forty years of their wan¬ 
derings in the wilderness, the numbers of the Hebrews 
were not materially increased, their birth rate and their 
death rate, during that entire period, must, on an average, 
have been about equal. It would evidently be a verj 
moderate estimate, therefore, to put the number of deaths 


340 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


during each of the terrible days of that wonderful flight at 
three thousand, or one for every one thousand of the entire 
population. Such a death rate would be regarded as 
extremely light even among veteran soldiers when simi¬ 
larly exposed. Indeed, while marching over the same 
desert, Napoleon’s veterans, although comparatively well 
equipped, suffered a mortality of one thousand per cent, 
greater than this. Let the number of deaths among the 
Hebrews, at the time in question, have been what they 
may, however, the dead must, of necessity, have been 
carried right on until a halt was made, or else hastily 
buried by the road-side, by small parties who fell out for 
that purpose, and who afterwards hurried forward and re¬ 
sumed their proper places in the ranks. Besides all these 
things, the vast flocks and herds had to be cared for, and, 
for a time, these must have been unruly and troublesome. 
Under all these circumstances, could those people have 
possibly performed a journey of over eighty miles in three 
days? And could they, for a longer period than three 
days, have possibly subsisted, in such a desert, upon the 
little “dough which they brought forth out of Egypt? ” 

As to water, few of the people could have carried any 
at all. Not being accustomed to traveling, few of them 
would have been provided with water skins, and the heavy 
earthen jars, which they used at home for water vessels, 
were totally unfit to carry water in on long journeys. 
Admitting, however, that the people did carry water with 
them, could they, in addition to all their other enormous 
burden, have possibly carried enough to last for more than 
three days ? What, then, did they do after this supply 
was exhausted ? At the present day, even small parties of 
travelers, when crossing that desert, are generally, if not 
always, accompanied by trains of camels bearing loads of 
water. When the Hebrews reached the Bed Sea, they 
found neither food nor drink, and yet they had to make a 
forced night march of over twenty miles through the miry 
bed of the sea. How did they manage to survive during 


THE EXODUS. 


tel 


that dreadful night, and during the next three days and 
nights, while they wandered in the wilderness of Shur, 
and “found no water? ” 

Every military man knows that an army of one hun¬ 
dred thousand men, making a forced march over ever so 
fertile a country, would soon perish of hunger, if they did 
not scatter out all over the country and supply themselves, 
or send out many large foraging parties to collect provi¬ 
sions, and bring them into the camps. How, then, could 
three millions of men, women, and children, with at least 
an equal number of domestic animals, have possibly man¬ 
aged to subsist, while marching, for many days at a time, 
all in one compact body, over a desert country in which 
no provisions could have been found, even if foraging par¬ 
ties had been sent out in search of them ? The people 
alone would have required enough food every day to load 
three hundred such freight cars as are now in use upon 
our railroads. And does not every intelligent person 
know that no such supply could ever have been obtained 
in such a country? 

It has generally been assumed by the champions of the 
Bible that, during the month and a half that the Hebrews 
spent wandering in the desert before the sending of 
manna, they subsisted upon the flesh of their flocks and 
herds. This assumption, however, does not appear to be 
well founded, since, at the close of this very period, the 
people cried for flesh to eat, and God sent them quails. 
If for a month and a half they had been feasting upon beef 
and mutton, and if they had still a supply of these kinds 
of flesh, they surely would not have made the cry they did, 
and God surely would not have sent them quails as he did. 
Admitting, however, that the assumption be correct, let us 
see what it involves. 

It is a well-known fact that, when traveling and living 
out of doors, people require much more food than they do 
when settled down and living in houses. The Hebrews, 
then, during the time of which we are speaking, must have 


342 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


required an unusually large supply of food. Under such 
circumstances, and having no other food, they would cer¬ 
tainly have required a sheep or a goat each day for every 
thirty persons, or a beef for every three hundred persons. 
This would have required a daily allowance of one hun¬ 
dred thousand sheep, or of ten thousand beeves; and, at 
this rate, there would have been consumed during the 
month and a half in question four million five hundred 
thousand sheep, or four hundred and fifty thousand beeves. 
Assuming that one-half of the flesh consumed was beef, 
and the other half mutton, there must have been consumed 
two million two hundred and fifty thousand sheep, and 
two hundred and twenty-five thousand beeves, or two 
million four hundred and seventy-five thousand domestic 
animals in all. This would have been nearly five-sixths of 
the entire three million, which, without any proper data 
upon which to base our assumption, we have assumed that 
the Hebrews brought with them out of Egypt. Since, 
however, it would be unreasonable to suppose that these 
people in so short a time would have so nearly consumed 
their entire stock of domestic animals, we are forced to 
the conclusion that our assumption of only three millions 
of these animals, as the original number, is far too small. 
Indeed, so far as I can learn, the domestic animals in all 
pastoral countries outnumber the inhabitants at least ten 
to one. This would give us at least thirty million as the 
number of these animals, brought by the Hebrews out of 
Egypt. If, then, we put the number of these animals at 
only ten millions, or three and one-third times that of the 
people, our estimate is certainly an extremely low one. 
Even this low estimate, however, which we will now adopt, 
will greatly modify some of the calculation which we have 
already made on the assumption that there were only 
three millions of these animals. But how could ten million 
cattle, sheep, and goats, all in one compact body, have 
found food and water for forty-five days on the deserts 
over which they were being driven? There are not now, 


THE EXODUS. 


343 


and from the nature of the country there never could have 
been, in those regions, any streams or pools of water of 
sufficient size to have been of any service to flocks and 
herds so immense. 

Besides all this, in very hot weather, and especially 
when breathing much dust, sheep, in particular, give out 
and soon perish, unless they get water after every eight or 
ten miles of travel. Every person accustomed to the driv¬ 
ing of sheep, in a hot and dry climate, knows this to be a 
fact. It is also a fact, well known to all stock drovers, 
that when so many as three thousand sheep or cattle are 
driven rapidly over very dusty roads, in hot weather, 
many of them often perish from suffocation. Even so 
small droves as these, therefore, often have to be divided 
and driven in two or three separate bodies. Indeed, in 
California, where, for nine months in the year, the ground 
is hot and dry, the great sheep raisers, even when not 
driving them, rarely attempt to keep more than four thou¬ 
sand sheep in one body. How, then, could ten million or 
more of cattle, sheep, and goats have been driven, all in 
one compact body, under the scorching sun, and over the 
fearfully dry and dusty roads of the African and the 
Arabian deserts ? Every shepherd and cattle drover knows 
that not even the one-hundredth part of the number of 
live stock in question ever could have been, or ever were, 
driven over those deserts, in the manner described in the 
Bible. 

The intense heat and the fearful clouds of dust from 
which, while moving, they could never escape, would have 
so greatly increased the thirst of those millions of cattle 
and other animals, that, without water at least once a day, 
they would all soon have perished. But where, on any 
part of the deserts over which they are said to have been 
driven, could they have obtained water once a day? In¬ 
deed, where could they have found it at all ? In order to 
all drink at once from a stream four rods wide, they would 
have had to pack it with their bodies, from bank to bank. 


344 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


for at least twenty-five miles of its length. In this case, 
however, what must have been the condition of the water 
when it reached those lowest down in the stream? With 
twenty-five miles of its length crowded with cattle, furious 
from thirst, fighting, splashing, stirring up the mud from 
the bottom, and filling the water with their own filth, 
could the stream, in its lower part, have been anything else* 
than a sewer of the most loathsome filthiness ? And does 
not every stock raiser know that cattle and sheep will 
perish of thirst before they will drink water which has 
been thus befouled? In the country over which the He¬ 
brews are said to have passed, there are no streams so 
large as I have supposed, and, in case of any smaller 
stream, the condition of the water would have been still 
worse. If only ten thousand of those animals could have 
drunk at once, it would have taken about four days and 
nights for them all to get a drink. So great a number as 
this could not possibly have drunk at once at any water¬ 
ing place in all that country; and yet, if they could, those 
in the rear would have been perishing of thirst before they 
reached the water, and those in the front would have again 
been sorely in need of water, long before those in the rear 
were done drinking. Besides this, as every drover knows, 
numbers so immense of intensely thirsty animals, in their 
frantic efforts to reach the water, would have surged 
furiously onward from behind, and forced those in front 
through the water and out of it, without letting them drink, 
or else would have piled upon one another, and thus have 
crushed to death, or suffocated, tens of thousands at a time 
of the weaker ones. In the great valleys of the Sacra¬ 
mento and the San Joaquin, I have often known great 
numbers of sheep to be suffocated in this way, although, 
in each case, there were only a few thousands struggling 
to reach the water, which was abundant. 

In Ex. xv, 27, we read : “ And they came to Elim, where 
were twelve wells of water, and three score and ten palm- 
trees ; and they encamped there by the waters.” Erom the 


THE EXODUS. 


345 


context, we learn tliat it was at these twelve wells that the 
Hebrews spent nearly all of the first month and a half 
after their departure from Egypt. During that whole 
time, then, each of these wells must have supplied water 
for two hundred and fifty thousand people, and, also, for 
nearly one million cattle, sheep, and goats. So far as I 
know, the champions of the Bible have never claimed that 
these were anything more than ordinary wells, supplied 
with one good w^ater bucket each. But, supposing that 
each of these wells contained the requisite amount of 
water, could that water have been drawn up in a single 
bucket, and distributed to so immense a body of people 
and of domestic animals? For drinking, cooking, wash¬ 
ing, and all other purposes, the people would certainly 
have required half a gallon a day to each individual. This 
would have required a daily supply of one hundred and 
twenty-five thousand gallons from each well; and, to have 
drawn this, would have required twenty-nine three-gallon 
bucketfuls a minute, for both day and night. After it was 
drawn, the water from these wells had to be carried, in 
such vessels as the people had brought with them, to all 
parts of the camp, which, of necessity, must have been 
several miles in extent each way. Since none of these ves¬ 
sels could have been large, several hundreds of thousands 
of water carriers must have visited the wells every day. 
Fifty thousand to each well would be a moderate estimate. 
Allowing that these water carriers worked both day and 
night, they would have had less than two seconds each at the 
well. How, then, could at least six times as much more 
water have been drawn, at the same time, from these same 
wells, and distributed, in these same s'mall vessels, to many 
square miles of cattle, sheep, and goats ? To anyone who 
has ever seen armies or large emigrant trains watering, 
this whole story becomes monstrously absurd, and utterly 
incredible. Had no numbers been given, the reader would 
never have inferred, from the general tenor of the story,, 
that Moses had with him more than three or four thousand 


346 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


people with their numerous flocks and herds. Very few 
portions of the story can possibly be reconciled with the 
immense numbers which the author has given us. 

As I have already said, there are not now, and, from 
the nature of the country, there never could have been, any 
large streams of water in the desert regions over which the 
Hebrews are said to have wandered. Indeed, so far as I 
can learn, there are no streams at all, in those regions, and 
the Bible does not represent the Hebrews as finding 
streams of any kind. Both the people and the cattle must 
have been supplied with water from such wells as were to 
be found in that country. But several hundreds of such 
wells would have been required for numbers so immense. 
It is true that the Bible has God, on three separate occa¬ 
sions, miraculously provide water for the people. No such 
provision, however, seems to have been made for the 
flocks and the herds. The most remarkable of these three 
cases of miraculous provision of water is said to have 
occurred near Mount Sinai, where the Hebrews are repre¬ 
sented as remaining for a year or more. In this case, 
Moses is represented as causing water to gush forth from 
a rock, simply by striking upon the rock with a wooden 
rod. The rock, from which this miraculous supply of 
water is said to have been thus obtained, still lies in its 
place near Mount Sinai, and is yearly visited by great 
numbers of pious pilgrims. By those who have examined 
it, it is described as a loose block of red granite, only 
eighteen feet in its greatest dimension. Had it been 
hollow, and filled with water, the supply would not have 
lasted the Hebrews one hour. The orifice, from which the 
water is said to have flowed, is described as being about 
four inches in diameter, and eighteen inches in depth. 
Before this truly insignificant orifice, the devout Jew, 
Christian, or Mohammedan, reverently uncovers his head, 
and feels himself to be, if not in the direct presence of God 
himself, at least in the presence of the visible traces of 
God’s miraculous power. The ungodly skeptic, however, 


THE EXODUS. 


347 


moved more by curiosity tlian by piety, irreverently ap¬ 
proaches this orifice, with his hat on, and feels himself to 
be merely in the presence of a small hole made in the rock 
by some pious impostor, the marks of whose chisel are 
still visible on the sides and the bottom of the orifice. 

From such an orifice as this, scare water enough could 
have flowed to supply the people alone. Just fancy the 
entire city of London, or three cities each the size of New 
York, as being suddenly deprived of all water except what 
the people could obtain and carry away, in cups, bottles, 
and other small vessels, from a single small spring or 
orifice like the one in question. Would not the space for 
a mile or more around the orifice be so packed with people 
that thousands would perish before they could reach the 
water at all? Would not the stream or reservoir, from 
which they dipped water, have had to be several miles in 
length in order that all might approach daily and obtain a 
supply? So must it have been with the equally immense 
number of Hebrews. How, then, did the cattle get water 
here, and in the other equally waterless regions in which 
the Hebrews are said to have encamped ? 

In addition to all these difficulties in regard to water, 
how could flocks and herds so immense have found pastur¬ 
age in such a country? Had the pasturage been very fine, 
half a square rod a day might have been sufficient for each 
animal. Even this small allowance, however, would have 
required, for all, a daily allowance of nearly fifty square 
miles, or an area of land ten miles long and five miles 
wide. On the deserts in question, however, all the scant 
pasturage on several hundred square miles w^ould have 
been required each day. Every traveler, who has ever 
passed over the country in question, knows that the only 
spots that ever could have produced good pasturage are 
small valleys and rocky ravines, into which large flocks and 
herds could never have entered. Admitting, however, that 
the pasturage was good, could so many domestic animals, 
nil in one body, have obtained food? While traveling, 


348 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


they would have had to scatter out many miles from the' 
road, and then the hundreds of thousands of stronger 
ones, going in front, would have trodden into the earth 
and ruined all the grass that they themselves did not con¬ 
sume. The weaker ones, therefore, going in the rear, 
would not have been able to obtain any food at alL. Be¬ 
sides this, even on the best of pasture-lands, they could not 
have been driven far enough from the road, in the evening, 
for all to get food, and then have time to return to the 
road to resume their journey, in the morning. While not 
traveling, the case would have been still worse; since they 
would then have had to be brought in every day to some 
well or other watering-place, and then driven out farther 
and farther every time, as the pasturage near the watering- 
place became exhausted. In a few days, they would have 
had to go from thirty to forty miles from the watering- 
place to find any pasturage at all. And if it would have 
been thus on the best of pasture-lands, how would it have 
been on the arid deserts over which the Hebrews are said 
to have wandered? If this whole story be credible, what 
is there incredible in the tales of Gulliver, of Sinbad the 
Sailor, or of Jack the Giant-killer ? 

In regard to the crossing of the Red Sea, we also find 
certain grave difficulties which the champions of the Bible; 
should, if possible, explain away. In Ex. xiv, 21, 22, we 
read: “And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea;; 
and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east 
wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the 
waters were divided. And the children of Israel went into- 
the midst of the sea upon the dry ground: and the waters 
were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their 
left.” Now every person who has ever noticed the trend 
of the shore of that armlet of the Red Sea, knows that an 
“east wind” could never have driven the waters back out 
of that armlet. Such a wind would have done more harm 
than good. It would have driven the waters in from the 
great body of the sea and rendered them deeper in the, 


THE EXODUS. 


349 


place at which the Hebrews are said to have crossed. 
Only a northwest wind could have driven the waters back 
out of that armlet. Admitting, however, that the waters 
were thus driven back by an “east wind,” or by a wind 
from any other direction, could those same waters have 
still been present, standing as “ a wall ” to the people, “on 
their right hand, and on their left?” If it was the “east 
wind ” that caused the waters to stand up thus like walls 
on either hand, how did the Hebrews manage to cross the 
sea directly in the face of that wind ? In order to have 
had such an effect upon so large a body of water, the 
violence of that wind would have surpassed that of the 
most terrible tornadoes ever known. And would net such 
a wind have carried the Hebrews and their cattle away 
like so many feathers ? The champions of the Bible may 
contend that it was the direct power of God, and not the 
“ east wind,” that thus divided the waters, and caused them 
to stand like walls on either hand. The Bible, however, 
expressly declares that the result in question was produced 
by the agency of the “ east wind,” and, in the whole affair, 
claims nothing as miraculous but the raising of so mighty 
a wind. And what right have the champions of the Bible 
to claim as a miracle that for which the Bible sets up no 
such claim? 

Admitting, however, that, by some means or another, 
the waters of the sea were thus driven back or divided, the 
sandy bottom was bound to be still thoroughly saturated 
with water, and was bound to be so beaten up by the 
trampling of the first few thousands of men, or of cattle, 
that crossed, that those following after would have been 
inextricably mired and lost. Under these circumstances, 
it would seem that God might safely have omitted that 
extremely mean trick, of which the Bible says he was 
guilty, of stealing the lincli-pins from the wheels of the 
Egyptian chariots. He is represented as doing this in 
order to cause the chariot wheels to come off in the sea. 
In so deep mire, however, the chariot wheels could have 


350 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


been of no use to the Egyptians, and hence might just as 
well not have been removed. 

In the seventeenth chapter of Exodus, we learn that, al¬ 
most immediately after they had crossed the Bed Sea, the 
Hebrews were well armed, and were able to overcome in 
battle the powerful forces of the warlike Amalekites. Will 
the champions of the Bible be so kind as to inform us 
whence the Hebrews obtained those arms ? Did they arm 
themselves before leaving Egypt? Would the Egyptians 
have permitted them to do this? And if, when leaving 
Egypt, they had all been thus well armed, would over six 
hundred thousand Hebrew warriors have been so terribly 
frightened, as the Bible represents them as having been, 
by the approach of Pharaoh, whose hastily assembled 
army could scarcely have contained one-third of that num¬ 
ber? If, on the other hand, the people, when leaving 
Egypt, were not armed, could they, in so short a time, and 
while fleeing for their lives over a desert country, have 
possibly either purchased or manufactured so many arms? 
If not, whence were those arms obtained ? 

In the twenty-sixth chapter of Exodus, we learn that, 
among a vast number of other materials, used in the con¬ 
structing of the tabernacle, there was a large amount of 
“fine-twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet” 
cloths, such as were used only by the most wealthy and the 
most highly civilized people of that time. Whence, then, 
did the Hebrews obtain these fine cloths? Could they, 
while wandering in the desert, have either manufactured 
these articles or purchased them of the rude and almost 
naked natives ? If not, must they not have borrowed these 
things of their confiding Egyptian neighbors, and then, by 
God’s order, have absconded with them, as they did with 
the clothing and the jewelry which God had them borrow 
and never return ? What say the champions of the Bible ? 

From various passages, we learn that, soon after the 
crossing of the Bed Sea, the Hebrews were all living in 
tents, of which at least three hundred thousand must have 


THE EXODUS. 


351 


been required. Whence were these tents obtained, and 
how were they carried ? Could the people, while yet in 
Egypt, have all been provided with tents ? Had they any 
time to provide such things ? Could they all, at one time, 
have obtained enough material to make so immense a 
number of tents ? Could these tents have been borrowed 
of the Egyptians, and carried, with all the other plunder, 
on the shoulders of men? Would the Egyptians, who 
nearly all lived in houses, have had so many tents to lend? 
Could these tents, in so short a time, and in such a country, 
have been either manufactured, or purchased from the 
natives ? 

In various places, we learn that, on several different 
occasions, Moses called the entire Hebrew nation together 
“unto the door of the tabernacle,” to hear from him the 
words of the Lord. But how could three million of people 
have come together thus, all at one time, “unto the door 
of the tabernacle?” As most of you doubtless already 
know, the tabernacle was only about fifteen feet in width, 
and the door, which was in one end of it, occupied only a 
portion of this width. Only about ten persons could have 
stood abreast in front of the whole end of the tabernacle. 
Drawn up in this order, however, with eighteen inches be¬ 
tween the ranks, the rear of the congregation would have 
been over eighty-five miles from the door of the taber¬ 
nacle, and comparatively few of the people could have 
heard the words spoken by Moses. 

It may be claimed, however, by the champions of the 
Bible, that it was at the door of the court of the tabernacle, 
or rather in front of the whole end of this court, that the 
people on the occasions in question, were wont to assem¬ 
ble. This court was an inclosure which surrounded the 
tabernacle on all sides, and which was seventy-five feet in 
width. In front of the end of this court, about forty per¬ 
sons could have stood abreast. Drawn up, however, with 
even this extended front, the rear of the congregation 
would still have been over twenty-one miles from the 


352 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


speaker. This order, then, would evidently not have done. 
Placing eight hundred abreast would have brought the 
rear rank within only a little more than one mile from the 
speaker. This is probably the most convenient order in 
which they could have been drawn up, and yet over half of 
them would still have been over half a mile from the door 
of the tabernacle, and entirely beyond the sound of the 
speaker’s voice. Could it, then, even in this most favor¬ 
able case, have been truthfully said that they all came to¬ 
gether “ unto the door of the tabernacle,” and that Moses 
spake unto “ all the congregation?” Fancy, if you can, the 
entire population of London, or of at least three cities each 
the size of New York, as being all collected, in a few min¬ 
utes, at the door of a very small church, and as all listen¬ 
ing to the harangue of a single speaker. Then, perhaps, 
you may be enabled to believe this whole monstrously in¬ 
credible story. 

As I have already stated, Moses is said to have fre¬ 
quently addressed the entire congregation of Israel. His 
last address of this kind deserves special notice. It was 
delivered iust before his death, and when he was one hun¬ 
dred and twenty years old. It occupies twenty-eight chap¬ 
ters of the Book of Deuteronomy, and must have required 
;at least five hours in its deliverj. Moses must, indeed, 
have been a wonderful man, if, notwithstanding the natural 
feebleness of so great an age, he made himself distinctly 
heard, during the entire delivery of so prodigious a speech, 
by the entire three million Hebrews, many of whom, from 
necessity, must have been drinking in his words from a 
distance of over half a mile. Every prominent public 
.speaker knows that it would be utterly impossible for any 
man of the present time, if speaking thus in the open air, 
to make himself heard, during even a short address, by 
thirty thousand persons, all on one side of him. Is it at 
all credible, then, that the aged Moses ever, during a five 
hours’ speech, made himself heard by a hundred such con¬ 
gregations, similarly placed ? 


THE EXODUS. 


353 


Let us now notice tlie size of the camp occupied by the 
Hebrews. In regard to this matter, there is, among Bible 
critics, a great diversity of opinions. The Bible gives us 
no data from which the size of that camp can be certainly 
determined. There are certain limits, however, below 
which its dimensions could not have fallen. Each family 
seems to have occupied a separate tent. Of necessity, 
then, there must have been, in all, at least three hundred 
thousand tents of sufficient capacity to constitute a dwell¬ 
ing-place for ten persons, together with all their household 
goods, their stores of provisions, etc. On the outside of 
each of these tents, which must have been quite large ones, 
there must also have been a small spot of ground upon 
which to build the fire, to store fuel, etc. Between all the 
rows of tents, in both directions, there must also have been 
streets of sufficient width to enable hundreds of thousands 
of persons to pass and repass upon them daity. In the 
center of the camp, around the tabernacle, there seems to 
have also been an immense public square, in which, when 
occasion required, the entire nation could assemble at one 
time. Taking all these things into their calculations, many 
of the ablest Bible critics hold that the camp or cloth city 
in question must have been at least twelve miles square. 
As every military man knows, this space would have been 
inconveniently small. I will assume, however, that the 
camp in question was only eight miles square, or four- 
ninths of the size assigned to it by the writers above men¬ 
tioned. This area then, would be about as much crowded 
as would be the City of New York, if, with only her present 
accommodations, her population were sixteen times greater 
than it now is. To have crowded the Hebrews more than 
this, would certainly have been unreasonable. Assuming, 
therefore, that the extremely small area of eight miles 
square constituted the size of the camp, let us see what 
had to be done daily by the priests and the people. 

In Deut. xxiii, 12-14, we learn that the Hebrews were 
required to go beyond the limits of the camp to attend to 


354 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


the ordinary calls of nature. Each individual must have 
had at least one such call every day; and those who lived 
near the center of the camp must, on each occasion, have 
walked four miles and back. Those persons, then, who 
had half a dozen such calls in a day, must have walked 
nearly fifty miles a day to attend to these calls alone. 
Those who could not, on each of these occasions, walk be¬ 
yond the limits of the camp, must, of necessity, have sent 
out their excrementitious matter in the hands of their 
friends or of their servants. At one time, during the day, 
there must have been about one hundred thousand men, 
women, and children, out just beyond the limits of the 
camp, attending to these unavoidable calls. So vast a, 
mixed multitude all thus occupied, upon the open plain, 
must have presented quite a picturesque scene. 

I am aware that certain champions of the Bible assume 
that only the soldiers were required, on the occasions in 
question, to go beyond the limits of the camp. This as¬ 
sumption is founded upon the fact that, in the thirteenth 
verse of the chapter to which I have referred, the soldiers- 
are required to carry upon their weapons certain little 
paddles with which to bury their own excrement. In the 
next verse, however, we read: “ For the Lord thy God 
walketh in the midst of thy camp to deliver thee; . . . 

therefore shall thy camp be holy, that he see no unclean¬ 
ness in thee, and turn away from tliee.” From this pas¬ 
sage, and from others which I might quote, it is evident 
that the regulations requiring the calls of nature to be at¬ 
tended to beyond the limits of the camp, applied to the 
whole people, and not to the soldiers alone. Had these 
regulations, so essential to health and cleanliness, if not to 
decency, applied to none but the soldiers, the camp would 
have been in almost as filthy a condition as if no such 
regulations had been established at all. I do not think 
that the Lord would ever have ventured to take a second 
walk in the midst of such a camp. The object intended to 
be secured by the regulations in question could have been 



THE EXODUS. 


355 


secured only by applying the regulations to the entire 
people. But could so many people, all situated thus in 
one camp, ever have been able to carry out any such regu¬ 
lations? You all know that they could not. 

Besides all this, the ashes and everything else that 
could, in any way, have detracted from the cleanliness of 
the camp, had also to be carried beyond the limits of the 
camp. For all the water, too, which the people used, they 
had to go beyond the limits of the camp; and, since the 
water could have been on only one side of the camp, those 
farthest from it must have had to walk eight miles and 
back every time they went for water. This must have 
been extremely inconvenient. All the wood, too, for fuel 
and other purposes, must have been brought from the 
places in which it grew, to the camp. From the nature of 
the country, there never could have been any such things 
as forests in the regions over which the Hebrews are said 
to have wandered. At best, there never could have been 
much more timber, in those regions, than exists in them 
now : a few stunted trees, growing here and there, in places^ 
sheltered by rocks. In the most favorable localities, all 
the wood within a radius of thirty miles, would hardly 
have lasted the Hebrews ten days. When they remained 
several years in one place, they must have brought their 
wood from a distance of a hundred miles or more, and 
brought it, too, on their own shoulders, or on the backs of 
asses. 

In Lev. iv, 11, 12, we read: “And the skin of the bul¬ 
lock, and all his flesh, with his head, and with his legs, 
and his inwards, and his dung, even the whole bullock, 
shall he carry forth without the camp, unto a clean place, 
where the ashes are poured out, and burn him on the wood 
with fire.” All of this work had to be done by Aaron or 
one of his sons. No other persons were allowed to do 
these things; and, since the tabernacle, at which the bul¬ 
lock was killed, stood in the middle of the camp, the 
officiating priest had to carry “ even the whole bullock,” 


356 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


upon his own shoulders, to a. place at least four miles from 
the tabernacle. But how often did he perform this won¬ 
derful feat ? 

After carefully considering all the sacrifices that were 
required, we cannot reasonably estimate the number 
offered each day at less than two hundred bullocks, four 
hundred rams, and six hundred young pigeons, and other 
small offerings. Allowing ten hours to the work day, this 
would give us, for each hour, twenty bullocks, forty rams, 
and sixty smaller offerings of various kinds. In all, there 
must have been an average of two offerings every minute. 
All these things, too, had to be offered upon one altar; 
and, if I rightly understand the language of the Bible, 
each one of them had to be offered separately by a single 
priest, although the other two priests might assist him in 
preparing it for the altar. Assuming, however, that, in 
some way, all three of the priests officiated at the same 
time, could they have possibly offered so many sacrifices? 
Would not the priest who carried the carcasses out of the 
camp have had a peculiarly hard time? Would he not 
have had to walk over two thousand miles every day? 
Would he not have had to walk half this distance, too, 
with the carcass of a bullock or of a ram upon his shoul¬ 
ders? Could three hundred men have done all the work 
that was required of these three priests? 

Besides all these things, whence did the Hebrews, while 
in the desert, obtain their daily requirement of four hun¬ 
dred or more doves, or young pigeons, for sacrifices? 
These birds could not, like the cattle, have been driven 
out of Egypt. If, then, they were brought out of Egypt 
at all, they must have been carried in cages. But could 
the people, in addition to their other enormous burdens, 
have carried so many birds, together with their appropriate 
foods? And if the birds were not brought from Egypt at 
all, how were they obtained in the desert ? 

For their own use and that of their families, the priests 
were to have the skins of all the burnt offerings and all 


THE EXODUS. 


357 


the shoulders and breasts of the peace offerings, and these 
offerings, as we have already seen, must have amounted to 
several hundreds every day. In addition to this liberal 
supply for themselves and their families, the priests alone 
were to eat in the holy place (Num. xviii, 10), all of the sin 
offerings, and trespass offerings, except the fat (Lev. iv, 
31-35), and all of the meat offerings, except one handful of 
each (Lev. ii, 2). The sin offerings were very numerous, 
those for the single sin, committed by the women, of 
bearing children, amounting to at least four hundred every 
day. Each of these offerings consisted of a lamb, a kid, 
or a pair of young pigeons. In addition, therefore, to the 
ample supplies of meats which he had to eat with his 
family, and in addition to his share of all the trespass 
offerings and meat offerings, each priest was bound to eat 
daily at least one hundred and thirty-three and one-third 
lambs, kids, birds, etc. 

Under these circumstances, it was well that the priests 
had so great a variety of meats. Had their allowance 
consisted all of one kind of meat they could hardly have 
“ worried down ” so great quantities. Indeed, even as it 
was, they did on one occasion fail to eat their entire 
rations. Having, no doubt, each already eaten on that 
day over a dozen bullocks, over one hundred and thirty 
lambs, kids, etc., and other kinds of food in proportion, 
their appetites began to fail them toward evening, and 
hence they burnt a goat which they should have eaten. 
From the lank appearance of their stomachs, however, or 
from the sheepish expression of their countenances, Moses 
suspected that they had not eaten the goat. He, there¬ 
fore, “ diligently sought the goat of the sin offering, and, 
behold, it was burnt; and he was angry with Eleazar and 
Ithamar, the 'sons of Aaron, saying, Wherefore have ye 
not eaten the sin offering in the holy place, seeing it is 
most holy, and God hath given it to you to bear the in¬ 
iquity of the congregation, to make atonement for them 
before Jehovah! Ye should indeed have eaten it in the 


358 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


holy place, as I commanded ” (Lev. x, 16-20). In pal¬ 
liation of this grave offense of himself and his sons, in 
not eating the goat in question, poor old Aaron pleaded 
the fact that his two elder sons, Nadab and Abihu, had 
been slain that day by God himself, and that the grief 
occasioned by this great calamity had impaired the appe¬ 
tites of himself and his two remaining sons. 

For want of time, I can barely glance at a few of the 
many remaining absurd and incredible teachings that are 
to be found in this monstrous story. Among other things, 
we are taught that the infinitely great and glorious power 
that rules the universe made it a sin for a pure and loving 
wife to bear children—a sin for the pardoning of which he 
uniformly charged a lamb, a kid, a pair of young pigeons, 
or something else of the kind. His pardons and his bless¬ 
ings always had to be bought. We are further taught that 
this infinitely great and glorious power regarded a woman 
as unclean just twice as long after the birth of a female 
child as after a male. We are still further taught that 
this infinitely great and glorious power took up its abode 
among this single tribe—the Hebrews—and devoted almost 
its entire time to their affairs; that it had a nose, with 
which it was wont to sniff up, with great gusto, the fumes 
of the beef, the mutton, etc., which were roasted for its 
especial benefit; that it had back parts, of which it made an 
indecent exposure to gratify the morbid curiosity of its own 
servant Moses ; that it turned cook, and taught the priests 
how to prepare its food and their own ; that it turned tailor 
find dressmaker, and taught the priests how to make bonnets, 
petticoats, etc., for themselves to wear; that it believed in 
witchcraft, and made laws for the killing of witches ; that 
it sometimes made solemn promises under oath, and then 
violated them; that it turned detective, and taught the 
priests how to discover the guilt or the innocence of a 
woman charged with adultery, merely by making her drink 
dirty water; that it turned petty thief and stole the linch¬ 
pins from the wheels of the Egyptian chariots; that it 


THE EXODUS. 


359 


turned juggler, and successfully competed, in feats of leger¬ 
demain, with the most skillful magicians of Egypt; that it 
encouraged slavery, polygamy, concubinage, and almost 
every other form of moral and social evil; that it believed 
the earth to be flat and stationary, the sky to be a solid 
structure, the day to be independent of the sun, etc.; that, 
in short, it was a person, in all its characteristics, resem¬ 
bling a man of that time. 

If you believe all these things, you ought to be sure of 
heaven, since it is generally admitted that God never made j 
a fool and then damned him. If, however, you have too 
much common sense to believe all these things, you may as 
well prepare to be damned. I am already prepared. 





360 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


LECTURE ELEVENTH, 

THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 

It is a well-known fact that all the religions of the world 
depend for the proof of their divine origin upon certain 
feats, or certain phenomena, usually called miracles. This 
is especially true of the Christian religion. Its ablest 
defenders claim no other proof of its divine origin. Take 
away its miracles, then, and this religion will at once dis¬ 
appear. 

As now usually understood, a miracle is either an act 
which, from its nature or its magnitude, could not possi¬ 
bly be performed by human power, or a phenomenon 
which, for similar reasons, could not possibly result from 
the action of any of the laws of nature. In other words, a 
miracle is something the production of which either sus¬ 
pends or transcends the operations of the laws of nature. 
In short, it is something that, of necessity, proceeds from 
the individual action of an intelligent being who is himself 
independent of the laws of nature, and superior to them. 
In other words, a genuine miracle proves the existence of 
a personal God. 

From all this, it is clear that the only difference between 
a Christian and an Infidel is that the former does, while 
the latter does not, believe that genuine miracles have ever 
been performed. Convince a Christian that no such mira¬ 
cles as are described in the Bible were ever performed, 
and you at once make him an Infidel. So, on the other 
hand, convince an Infidel that the miracles described in 
the Bible were all genuine, and you at once make him a 
Christian. In neither case has the will of the subject any¬ 
thing to do with his belief, or his unbelief. The whole 
matter depends upon evidence, or upon the want of evi- 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


361 


dence. The man who believes does so simply because a 
sufficient amount of evidence has been brought to bear 
upon him to compel him to believe. His belief, therefore, 
cannot possibly involve any merit on his own part. So, on 
the other hand, the man who disbelieves does so simply 
because, from a want of sufficient evidence to convince his 
judgment, he is utterly unable to do otherwise. His un¬ 
belief, therefore, cannot possibly involve any demerit on 
his own part. The unbeliever, then, should not be con¬ 
demned because of the weakness of the evidence adduced, 
in support of their religion, by the champions of Chris¬ 
tianity. • 

Notwithstanding the unreasonableness of doing so, 
however, the believers in the Christian religion always 
have arrogated to themselves, solely because of their be¬ 
lief, special merit and special fitness for eternal happiness. 
On the other hand, they have always denounced unbe¬ 
lievers in their religion as totally unfitted, by that unbelief, 
for anything but the dungeon, the rack, and the stake in 
the present life, and eternal torments in the life to come. 
This horribly unjust discrimination, on the part of the 
believers in Christianity, in their own favor, and against 
the unbelievers in that religion, has done more than any 
other one cause to crush out free thought and honest 
investigation among men, to retard the advance of light 
and knowledge, and to promote hypocrisy, ignorance, and 
superstition. 

I have given a concise definition of the word miracle as 
it is now generally understood. Anciently, however, it was 
synonymous with the word wonder. Then a miracle was 
simply something wonderful. W e now, however, make a very 
marked distinction between the merely wonderful and the 
truly miraculous. While no intelligent person denies the 
existence of real wonders, comparatively few such persons 
believe in the existence of real miracles. It must be ad¬ 
mitted, however, that things regarded as miraculous in 
one age, or by one people, may be regarded as merely 


362 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


wonderful, or even as common-place, in another age, or by 
another people. Such are many of the feats of jugglers 
and magicians. To the ignorant and superstitious, these 
feats appear to be truly miraculous; to the comparatively 
intelligent> they appear to be* truly wonderful; to the 
initiated, they appear to be mere common-place matters. 
The same is also true of the results of many scientific 
experiments. As instances, we might name the light¬ 
ing of a fire with a drop of water, or with sparks from a 
man’s nose; the converting of a cotton garment into its 
own weight of sugar, the converting of water into wine, 
and the causing of large pieces of iron to stand in • the air 
without either visible or tangible support. To the igno¬ 
rant, these things appear miraculous; to the educated, 
they do not appear even wonderful. Indeed, were Moses, 
Elijah, or any other of the reputed miracle performers of 
the Bible, to return to the earth, with all the power he 
ever possessed, he could not now possibly perform any 
feat that would pass among intelligent men as a real 
miracle. 

In a single lecture I can, of course, notice only a few 
of the many so-called miracles of the Bible. The crea¬ 
tion, the deluge, the exodus, and the conception of Jesus 
without a human father, are, undoubtedly, the four most 
noted miracles, or rather extravagances, of the Bible, and 
yet, since these are all fully noticed in other lectures, I 
will give them no further notice now, but will devote the 
present lecture to a consideration of other important and 
yet minor miracles. 

Among the miraculous events, said to have occurred 
soon after the deluge, was the wonderful repast, eaten at 
the table of the old patriarch, Abraham, by three angels, 
or rather by the three personal Gods that constituted the 
congress or corporation called Elohim. Those three per¬ 
sons are said to have had the forms of men, and to have 
eaten heartily of meat, bread, milk, and other substantial 
articles of food. A question, therefore, naturally arises in 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


363 


regard to the nature of the bodies in which those three 
persons made their appearance. As now taught by the 
entire Christian Church, angels, and all other celestial intel¬ 
ligences, are pure spirits, being totally destitute of anything 
like material bodies. Of necessity, however, such beings 
would be totally invisible, inaudible, intangible—in short, 
totally incapable of becoming known to us through our 
only avenue of knowledge, the mediumship of our physi¬ 
cal senses, seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. No object can 
possibly be visible unless it either emits rays of light 
itself, or reflects the rays that fall upon it from some 
luminous body. In either of these cases, however, it 
must, of necessity, be a material body. So, in order to 
produce sound, and to thus make itself known to us 
through our sense of hearing, an object must, of necessity, 
be capable of producing vibrations in the air, and this can 
be done only by a material body. So also of the remain¬ 
ing physical senses. They cannot possibly take cogni¬ 
zance of anything but material objects and their various 
properties. 

It is evident, then, that the three persons in question, 
who were both seen and heard, must have possessed mate¬ 
rial bodies ; and since they were capable of walking, talk¬ 
ing, growing weary, becoming rested, growing hungry and 
thirsty, and of eating, drinking, digesting, etc., their bodies 
must, of necessity, have possessed all the organs, and per¬ 
formed all the functions, of the human body. Whence, 
then, did those bodies come? Had they always existed, 
■or were they only assumed, temporarily, for that particu¬ 
lar occasion? If they had always existed, must not all 
other heavenly beings have also possessed material bodies? 
If, on the other hand, they were manufactured and put on, 
like garments, for that one occasion alone, how were they 
so quickly made, and what became of them when their 
present possessors were done with them? If, like the 
bodies of men, they were formed by the unchangeable ac¬ 
tion of the previously existing laws of nature, then, like 


364 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


the bodies of men, they were evidently natural bodies, and 
there was nothing miraculous about them. Indeed, upon 
this hypothesis, those persons could not have been either 
more or less than men, acting as angels or messengers. In 
this case, the miracle entirely disappears. 

If, however, the bodies in question were suddenly 
formed for that special occasion, whence did the material 
come of which they were composed, and by what power 
was it brought together into the form of those bodies ? 
Did each person form his own body ? If not, who formed 
it for him? And how did the body-maker, whoever he 
may have been, manage to seize hold of the various atoms 
of matter, and place them all in their proper positions in 
those bodies? Since we are not having the laws of nature 
operate in the case, the whole process must have been a 
mechanical one. But such a process could have been per¬ 
formed only by a person who already possessed a material 
body; and if, in this case, the body-maker himself pos¬ 
sessed such a body, who made it for him; and who made 
that maker’s body, and so on forever? Do you believe 
that any such bodies were ever thus instantaneously 
formed at all? If so, what became of those bodies? Did 
they go to heaven? If so, did the bread, the meat, the 
milk, etc., which they had just taken in, go to heaven also? 
If they did not go to heaven, did they slowly decay, as do- 
the dead bodies of men, or did they, like the “Wonderful 
One-horse Shay,” instantaneously dissolve into their origi¬ 
nal elements ? And what became of the material of those•• 
bodies? Did it, like the material of that “ Wonderful 
One-horse Shay,” fall down all in a heap, when those: 
bodies dissolved, or was every particle of it carried back 
to its original position? And what became of the food 
which those bodies contained? Did it all fall down in a 
heap, when the bodies dissolved, or was it carried back to 
Abraham’s table ? When considered in all its bearings,, 
does not this story become utterly incredible ? 

In connection with this pretended miracle, we find that 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


365 


of tlie raining of fire and brimstone upon tlie cities of 
Sodom and Gomorrah. In regard to this latter affair, the 
question very naturally arises, whence came the brimstone 
that fell thus, like rain, upon those two unfortunate cities? 
Of necessity, it must have been either absolutely created 
there all out of nothing, or else brought together there 
from some other locality in which it already existed. If it 
was absolutely created there, then the Bible speaks falsely 
when it declares that God finished all his creative works 
in six days. If, however, on the other hand, it was brought 
together there from some other locality, then we have a 
right to ask by what means it was thus brought together. 
Of necessity, it must either have been carried together by 
mechanical means, such as material hands, or else drawn 
together by some kind of attraction. That it was carried 
together into such a position, I do not suppose that any 
one will claim. It must, then, have been drawn together 
by some kind of attraction. But what kind of attraction 
was it that thus drew together brimstone and nothing else ? 
And how came that strange kind of attraction to be acting, 
at that particular time, in the air, over those two doomed 
cities, and nowhere else? Of necessity, that temporary 
attraction must have been the result of a direct creation 
for that special occasion. The direct creation of such a 
force, however, and its direct annihilation, after its object 
had been accomplished, are more incredible events than 
would have been the direct creation of the brimstone itself, 
and a thousand times more incredible than would be the 
declaration that the whole story was manufactured by an 
ancient Gulliver. It is a well-known fact that, like strength, 
weight, hardness, etc., attractive force is simply a condi¬ 
tion. or property of matter; and that it cannot possibly 
exist except in connection with some form of matter. It 
is evident, then, that no such force, acting thus indepen¬ 
dently of matter, ever did exist in the air over Sodom, 
Gomorrah, or any other city. In other words, it is evident 
that the whole story is an absurd fable 


366 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


In connection with this pretended miracle, we also find 
that of turning Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. This cruel 
and unnecessary transformation was certainly a very not¬ 
able miracle, and yet the account of it is dashed off in 
only fifteen words, thus: “But his wife looked back from 
behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.” The author 
incidentally mentions this wonderful transformation as if 
it had been an ordinary event, and as if it had occurred as 
a matter of course. Lot and his daughter do not appear 
to have been, in the least, either surprised or grieved 
at Mrs. Lot’s wonderful and unfortunate transformation. 
They left her standing there, and never went back to look 
after her. Indeed, they do not appear to have ever again 
even mentioned her name. And now, let me ask, if for so 
trivial an offense as that of looking back upon the burning 
city which she was leaving, so fearful a fate had actually be¬ 
fallen her, would not some further notice have been given to 
the affair ? Since Lot and his daughters did not look back to 
see what had become of her, and since all the balance of 
the Sodomites were destroyed, who ascertained and re¬ 
ported the fact that she had been thus unceremoniously 
reduced to her equivalent of chloride of sodium? Who 
tasted of her to be sure that she was salt? How long was 
it before she melted away, or was licked up by the cattle? 
When she became salt, did she still retain her original 
shape? If not, what shape did she assume, and how was 
it known that this differently-shaped object was Mrs. Lot 
at all? After she became a pillar of salt, what kept that 
pillar from tumbling down? What became of her clothes? 
Were they also changed to salt? Could the carbon, the 
oxygen, the nitrogen, the iron, etc., of which she was com¬ 
posed, have been changed into salt, which contains only 
two elements, chlorine and sodium? Does not every 
chemist know that no such transformation was ever made? 
Admitting, however, that it was made, did it cause Mrs. 
Lot any pain? If not, was there any punishment in it? 
To what extent did her transformation affect the salt mar- 



THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


367 


ket? Was lier commercial value increased or diminished 
by her transformation? If she had a soul, what became 
of it? Was it also changed to salt? If so, how much 
did it make? If not, was it sent to heaven or to hell? If 
to heaven, was she not richly rewarded for her disobedi¬ 
ence ? If to hell, was not this punishment enough for so 
trivial an offense without wreaking vengeance upon her 
dead body? If you can swallow this story as true history, 
what is to hinder you from swallowing a whale as you 
would an oyster ? And how can any two of you who claim 
to be intelligent persons look each other in the face, and, 
without laughing, declare that you really do believe this 
monstrously ridiculous tale? 

I will next notice the pretended miracle, said to have 
been performed by Moses and also by the magicians of 
Egypt, of changing a wooden rod into a living serpent, 
and the living serpent thus produced again into a wooden 
rod. If this feat was ever performed at all, it was certainly 
a very notable miracle. The wooden rod, as such, in¬ 
stantly ceased to exist, and, in its stead, and composed of 
its material, a living serpent instantly came into existence, 
^n the twinkling of an eye the utterly unchangeable ele¬ 
ments that entered into the composition of the wooden 
rod were changed into the entirely different and equally 
unchangeable elements that enter into the composition of 
a serpent. Nothing short of an absolutely creative power 
could ever have peformed so wonderful a transformation. 
In order to be a real serpent at all, this serpent must, of 
necessity, have been composed, as other serpents are, of 
flesh, blood, bones, etc. Like all other serpents, it must, 
of necessity, have possessed eyes, ears, lungs, veins, arte¬ 
ries, nerves, digestive organs, etc. Each of these organs, 
too, must, of necessity, have performed in this serpent the 
same function that it performs in any other serpent. Like 
all other serpents, then, this serpent must, of necessity, have 
been capable of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling, 
eating, moving, thinking, loving, hating, fearing, etc. Like 


368 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


all other serpents, too, it must, of necessity, have pos¬ 
sessed sex, and have been of some particular species. 
Which was it, then, a male or a female, and what property 
of the wooden rod was it that tended to produce this sex 
rather than the other? And of what species was this 
serpent, and what property of the wooden rod was it that 
tended more to produce this species than it did to produce 
any other? Did any elements enter into the composition 
of the serpent which had not previously existed in the 
wooden rod? Did it derive from that w r ooden rod all the 
elements of its muscular strength, its animal life, and 
mental or thinking faculties? If not, whence did it de¬ 
rive them? Did God instantly create them, all out of 
nothing, and put them into the serpent? Can strength 
exist apart from some material object that is strong? Can 
animal life exist apart from some animal that lives? And 
can the power of thinking exist apart from something that 
thinks? Are not all these things mere conditions of 
matter, and do they not depend for their existence upon 
certain forms of organization? Could God, then, have 
made them separate from the serpent, and afterwards put 
them into it? And could Pharaoh’s magicians have done 
the same? And if God thus created and put into the ser¬ 
pent elements wdiicli had never existed in the rod, then 
the serpent was not the rod at all. It was a newly created 
creature. 

When this serpent was changed into a rod, what rod 
was it? Was it the same rod that Moses had thrown 
down, or was it a new one ? Did not the rod which Moses 
threw down cease to exist the moment it was changed into 
a serpent? And could this same rod have again begun to 
exist, after the serpent, into which it had been changed, 
had ceased to exist ? Could the rod which was changed 
into a serpent and the rod into which the serpent was 
changed have been one and the same rod, without having 
had a continuous existence as a rod ? And if this exist¬ 
ence was continuous, could the pretended serpent, which 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


369 


constituted this rod during a portion of its continuous 
existence, have been anything more or less than the rod 
itself? So of the serpent. When the second rod was 
changed into, a serpent, what serpent was it? Was it the 
same serpent into which the first rod had been changed? 
If it was not, what had become of that other serpent, and 
in what respect did the two serpents differ? If it was the 
same, could it remember its former self? Could it also 
remember the interim during which it existed only as a 
wooden rod? If, without losing its identity, a serpent 
could thus exist a portion of the time as a wooden rod, could 
not a man do the same? Is there anything incredible, 
then, in the Arabian tales which have men changed into 
dogs, horses, stones, etc? Did not this tale, like nearly 
all other similar tales, originate in Arabia? Be this as it 
may, however, what became of the muscular strength, the 
animal life, the mind, the appetite, and the passions of 
that serpent when it was changed into a wooden rod? 
Did all these things go into the rod? If they did, must 
not the rod have possessed muscular strength, animal life, 
mental faculties, appetites, and passions? In short, must 
not everything have been present in the rod that had pre¬ 
viously been present in the serpent? Were not the rod 
and the serpent, of necessity, the very same thing under 
different forms of organization? And if a difference of 
organization is all the difference there is between a wooden 
rod and a serpent, what other difference can there be 
between a wooden rod, a serpent, or any other object, and 
a man? 

Besides all these things, were the life, the strength, the 
appetites, the passions, the mental faculties, and all the 
other endowments of the second serpent identical with 
those of the first? If not, could the two serpents have 
been one and the same serpent ? If they were identical, 
how had they been made to extend their identical exist¬ 
ence over that period during which neither of the serpents 
had any existence ? Could the two serpents have been the 


370 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


same serpent without having both existed at the same 
time, and without having had a continuous existence? 
And did they both exist at the same time,’ and was that 
existence a continuous one? If so, then it is clear that 
the changing of the serpent into a wooden rod made no 
break in the serpent’s continuous existence. Of necessity, 
the wooden rod must still have been a living serpent; the 
very same serpent that was supposed to have been changed 
into the rod, and the very same serpent, too, into which 
the rod was supposed to have been changed. In other 
words, it is clear that the rod was a rod all the time, and 
that the serpent was a serpent all the time, neither one of 
them having been changed into the other, and no miracle 
at all having really been performed. 

When Moses had changed his rod into a serpent, and it 
had swallowed all the serpents into which the magicians 
had changed their rods, did it digest those serpents and 
excrete them from its body ? If not, what became of them 
when it was again changed into a rod ? Did they drop out 
of it, and again change into the rods of the magicians, or 
were they, too, changed, together with the serpent that 
swallowed them, into the rod of Moses? If this latter 
transformation took place, did these serpents, or did they 
not, add anything to the size and the weight of the rod of 
Moses ? Finally, if these serpents had been permitted to 
remain serpents, could they, or could they not have propa¬ 
gated their species and become, in all respects, like ser¬ 
pents produced in the natural way ? 

When Moses changed his rod into a serpent, Pharaoh, 
for whose benefit the trick was performed, did not appear 
to be in the least surprised. He seemed to be well 
acquainted with the trick, and to show Moses that it was 
nothing new, and that it did not indicate, on the part of 
the performer, the possession of any supernatural powers, 
he instantly called in his magicians, who did not claim any 
such powers, and had them perform the same trick. They 
seemed to fully understand the trick, and, when required 


THE MIRACLES OP THE BIBLE. 


371 


to do so, promptly proceeded to perform it. If they had 
not already frequently performed the trick, and been cer¬ 
tain of their power to perform it again, would they have 
thus so confidently undertaken to perform it? Would 
you, in the presence of a king, and of other great person¬ 
ages, undertake thus pronq3tly to perform a trick which 
you never had performed, and of the mode of performing 
which you were entirely ignorant ? 

You may claim that, on this particular occasion, God 
gave these magicians power to do that which they had 
never before done, and which, without his aid, they never 
could have done. In setting up this claim, however, you 
directly contradict the Bible, which expressly declares that 
the magicians performed this trick by means of their own 
enchantments. If, then, you still insist upon the truth of 
this monstrous snake story, you are bound to admit that, 
by their own powers or enchantments, mere men could,, 
and did, and consequently can yet, perform the genuine 
and truly astonishing miracle of changing dry wooden rods, 
into living serpents as perfect, in all their parts, as are 
those produced by nature. How, then, do you know that, 
on the occasion in question, Moses was aided by divine 
power? May he not also have been merely a skillful 
magician, performing his feats by means of liis own enchant¬ 
ments ? 

I will next notice the pretended miracle of turning all 
the waters of Egypt into blood. If this transformation 
was actually performed, as related, it was certainly a very 
notable miracle, and yet Pharaoh does not appear to have 
been in the least either surprised or alarmed at it. He 
appeared to fully understand the trick, and his magicians, 
at once proceeded to perform it also. This they did, not 
by God’s assistance, as Moses professed that he did, but by 
their oivn enchantments. You are bound to admit, then, 
that, by their own powers, mere men could, and did, and, 
consequently, can yet, perform genuine miracles; and, as a. 
necessary consequence of this admission, you are bound 


372 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


also to admit tliat tlie performance of the stupendous 
blood-making feat in question, by Moses, was no proof at 
all that he was aided by divine power. 

Connected wdtli this pretended miracle, we find a 
remarkable circumstance which the champions of the 
Bible ought to feel it incumbent upon themselves to 
explain. This is the fact that, after Moses, with God’s 
assistance, had changed all the waters in Egypt into blood, 
the magicians immediately proceeded, by means of their 
own enchantments, to change these very same ivaters into 
blood; and the fact that, after Moses, by turning all the 
waters into blood, had caused all the fish in them to die , the 
magicians, by performing the very same trick upon the 
very same water, caused to die a second time , the very same 
fisli that Moses had already killed. How could all this have 
been done? Could blood have been changed into blood\ 
and could dead fish have been MM? And if all the waters 
of Egypt really had been thus doubly changed into blood, 
how many of the people of that country would have lived 
to tell the story ? If all those waters were changed into 
blood at all, that blood must, of necessity, have been 
blood , genuine bloody such as is found only in the bodies of 
animals. Picture to yourself, then, for a moment, every 
river, lake, rill, etc., of a vast country filled with genuine 
blood , putrefying in the sun of a hot climate, and then, 
upon your honor, declare, if you can, that you realty be¬ 
lieve this monstrous bloody tale. 

In connection with these two pretended miracles, we 
find that of causing countless myriads of frogs to come up, 
out of all the rivers and other waters of Egypt, and fill the 
entire land, even the bed-chambers, the ovens, and the 
dough troughs of the people. As in the former two cases, 
both sets of these jugglers successfully performed this 
truly astounding feat. Moses and Aaron, according to 
their own statements, performed it with God’s assistance; 
the magicians, without an assistance at all. Stupendous 



I 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 373 

as this fact was, however, it does not appear to have occa¬ 
sioned the least surprise or alarm among the people. 

In these three cases, we have the pitiful spectacle of 
your God, whom you arrogantly claim to be the infinite 
power that rules the universe, turned juggler, and com¬ 
peting with the magicians of Egypt in feats of prestidigi¬ 
tation. Thus far, he has gained no advantage over his 
rivals, except in the single feat of making his serpent 
swallow theirs. This swallowing feat, however, being a 
natural act on the part of a serpent, cannot be regarded at 
all as a miracle. The serpents of the magicians could 
doubtless have done the same thing to serpents smaller 
than themselves. 

These three feats undoubtedly rank among the most 
notable miracles ever claimed to have been performed. 
They far surjDass any said to have been performed by 
Jesus. If, then, on account of the comparatively trivial 
miracles said to have been performed by him, you claim 
that Jesus was certainly a divine personage of a very high 
order, are you not compelled to admit that the far greater 
miracles performed by them prove that the magicians of 
Egypt were divine personages of a much higher order? 
The first miracle said to have been performed by Jesus 
was that of changing a few casks of water into wine. This 
transformation he performed upon water to which he had 
direct access. He performed it, too, in the presence of 
none but a crowd of drunken revelers who were totally un¬ 
fitted to determine the means by which the transformation 
was made. Indeed, the performing of this feat, by jugglers 
and by chemists, is so common at the present time that it 
no longer excites wonder in those who witness it. The 
party who would now claim this feat to be a miracle, per¬ 
formed by the power of God, would be regarded as a 
blasphemer, and would be hissed out of countenance by 
every intelligent audience. Not so, however, of the stu¬ 
pendous feat of instantly changing the great Nile, and all 
the other waters of Egypt, into blood. This prodigious 


374 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


transformation was performed upon immense bodies of 
water to which the operators had no access, the waters, in 
some instances, being a hundred miles distant. It was 
performed, too, in the presence of sober, intelligent, and 
highly educated persons who could not have been imposed 
upon. Indeed, the Bible and all its champions admit that 
the feat in question was a genuine miracle. If, then, be¬ 
cause he performed the quite common feat of changing a 
small quantity of water into wine, you are justifiable in 
regarding Jesus as a God, am I not justifiable in regarding 
as gods the magicians who performed the incomparably 
greater miracle of changing all the waters of Egypt into 
blood? 

The most notable miracle ever claimed to have been per¬ 
formed by Jesus was the raising of the dead. Admitting, 
however, that he actually did perform this feat, what does 
his performance amount to when compared with that of 
the magicians in question who, on a moment’s notice, with¬ 
out any materials except a few dry wooden rods, instantly 
made and gave life to genuine serpents; and who, while 
sitting in the king’s palace, without any materials at all, 
instantly made and gave life to countless millions of frogs 
all over the land of Egypt? The feat of the man who 
merely removes from a w*ell-made watch some obstacle that 
has caused it to stop running, and who thus simply restarts 
it to running, amounts to almost nothing at all when com¬ 
pared to that of the man who, from crude materials, 
makes a watch and gives it original motion. So the feat of 
Jesus, who merely removed some obstacle that had caused 
the machinery of life in the body of his subject to tem¬ 
porarily stop running, and who thus simply restarted that 
machinery to running, amounted to almost nothing when 
•compared to the astounding feats of those magicians who, 
as I have already shown, instantly manufactured living 
serpents from ivooden rods, and who, all out of nothing, and 
at great distances from where themselves were, instantly 
created millions upon millions of living frogs. By means 



THE MIRACLEtt OF THE BIBLE. 


375 


of their own enchantments, those magicians instantly 
caused dry and hard wooden rods to dissolve, and the 
elements of which they were composed to transform them¬ 
selves into other entirely different elements, and to then 
arrange themselves into the various tissues of living ser¬ 
pents; into flesh, blood, bones, tendons, and skin; into 
lungs, with their millions of minute air cells; into hearts, 
with their wonderful muscular power and their exquisitely 
delicate valves; into veins and arteries, with their untold 
millions of capillaries too minute to be traced out even 
with the aid of the most powerful microscopes; into nerves 
of motion and nerves of sensation, with their equally mi¬ 
nute and multitudinous ramifications; into ears, with their 
indescribably beautiful machinery; into eyes, with their 
almost infinitely perfect arrangement of coats, humors, 
retinas, ciliary processes, optic nerves, etc.; into brains 
and sexual organs, with all their mysterious machinery of 
thought and of procreation; in short, into all the organs 
of life, of sensation, of thought, of motion, of appetite, and 
of passion. And all this and more may, with equal truth¬ 
fulness, be said of the multiplied millions of frogs created 
by those magicians at great distances from where them¬ 
selves were. How did the magicians manage to do this? 
How did they, especially when far away, manage to seize 
hold of every atom of matter, and convey it to its proper 
place in the wonderfully delicate tissues of those living 
creatures? Did they do it at all? If they did, were they 
not gods? If they did not, is not the Bible a monstrous 
imposition? 

Since the laws of nature never change, men undeniably 
still retain all the powers they ever possessed. If, then, 
they ever possessed the power to make living frogs, ser¬ 
pents, etc., ad libitum , they must, of necessity, still retain 
that same power. Why, then, may we not have frog 
factories established sufficient to supply all the frog-eaters 
of the world ? And since frogs are just as hard to make 
as are men and other animals, why may we not have horse 


376 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED* 


factories, cow factories, man factories, etc.? Would not 
sucli factories be a vast improvement upon tlie slow old 
method by which we have hitherto been wont to increase 
our own numbers and those of our domestic animals? 
What could be more convenient or more beautiful than to 
have merely to grind out a noble man, or a lovely woman, 
whenever we might chance to desire one? 

In connection with these last three pretended miracles, 
were those of changing all the dust of Egypt into lice, and 
of filling the whole land of Egypt with fearful swarms of 
flies. These truly wonderful feats are said to have been 
successfully performed by God, through his agents Moses 
and Aaron. Their rival jugglers, however, the magicians 
of Egypt, could not perform this feat. Indeed from this 
time onward, God proved so much superior to them, in 
feats of jugglery, that they soon gave up the useless con¬ 
test. If actually performed, these two feats, as well as 
the feat of filling the whole land of Egypt with locusts a 
few days later, were certainly notable miracles, and yet 
because they are so similar to the miracles of the frogs 
and the serpents, I will pass them without further notice. 
I will next notice the pretended miracle, said to have been 
performed by Moses and Aaron, of killing all the cattle in 
Egypt with a deadly murrain. All Bible critics agree 
that, as used in this connection, the term cattle includes 
all those domestic animals that were used as beasts of 
burden, or whose flesh was used for food. Indeed, all 
these animals are mentioned by name: Behold the hand 
of the Lord is upon thy cattle which is in the field, upon 
the horses, upon the asses, npon the camels, upon the 
oxen, and upon the sheep; there shall be a very grievous 
murrain. . . . And the Lord did that thing on the 

morrow, and all the cattle of Egypt died ” (Ex. ix, 3, 6). 
Erom this, we learn that, in the entire land of Egypt, there 
was not left alive a single horse, ass, ox, camel, or sheep, 
except those belonging to the Hebrews. Of itself, this was 
a very wonderful, as well as a very cruel, trick. What is 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


377 


still more wonderful, however, is the fact that, on the very 
next morning, God plagued, with deadly boils, both man 
and beast , throughout all the land of Egypt. Did God 
thus plague the dead beasts ? If not, what beasts did he 
plague? Our wonder still increases, however, when we 
read that, on the very next morning after the poor dead 
cattle had been thus plagued with boils, God warned 
Pharaoh to send and collect all the cattle from the fields, 
and place them under shelter, because there was going 
to be a terrible storm of hail which would kill all the 
cattle that were left in the fields. Being thus duly warned 
a day in advance, Pharaoh, by sending out a few thousands 
of messengers at the rate of only one hundred miles an 
h~ur, could have warned all his people to collect their 
cattle into places of safety. This, however, he neglected 
to do; probably because he thought that hail could not 
MU cattle that had already been two days dead. The 
result of this very natural neglect was that God again 
Mlled all these poor dead cattle, except a very few which 
those of Pliaraoh’s servants who feared the Lord, and who 
heard in time of the impending hail storm, had made to 
“flee into the houses.” How did God manage to thus 
MU dead cattle, and how did the God-fearing Egyptians in 
question manage to make dead cattle “flee unto the houses ? ” 
In Ex. xi, 5, and xii, 29, we learn that all the first-borns 
of all the beasts, and especially of all the cattle, of Egypt, 
were miraculously destroyed. This wholesale destruction 
of the first-borns of their cattle is ^represented as having 
been a terrible misfortune to the whole Egyptian nation, 
and as extending throughout the entire land of Egypt. 
Had the victims of this cruel and unnecessary trick been 
only the first-borns of the few cattle that had survived the 
hail, their destruction could not have been regarded as a 
very great or very general misfortune. From the magni¬ 
tude of the misfortune, therefore, and from the fact that it 
affected equally all parts of Egypt, we learn that it extended 
to the first-borns of “all the cattle of Egypt.” But, as we 


378 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


have already seen, “all the cattle of Egypt,” had already 
been killed, only a few days before, of murrain, and nearly 
all of them a second time by hail. The most fortunate of 
these first-borns, therefore, now died for the second time ; 
the less fortunate of them for at least the third time. In 
addition to these three deaths, many of them, no doubt, 
had died once also from boils. But they were still not 
done dying. Three days after this last killing, Pharaoh, 
with all his horses alive and well , was in hot pursuit of the 
Hebrews, who, by God’s orders, had borrowed, from their 
too confiding Egyptian neighbors, vast amounts of valua¬ 
bles, and were now, also by God’s orders, running away 
with this ill-gotten plunder. When all these horses and 
other cattle perished, as we are informed that they soon 
afterwards did, by drowning in the Red Sea, the most of 
them must have died for the third time , and many of them 
for the fourth , or even the fifth time. How many lives did 
they have? A cat is said to have only nine. And by what 
modus operandi were all these wonderful, and yet exceed¬ 
ingly cruel, killing-tricks performed? 

I will next notice the pretended miracle, said to have 
been performed by Moses, of producing, throughout the 
entire land of Egypt, three days of darkness so dense that 
it could be felt. Now we know that darkness is simply the 
absence of light, and not a material substance capable of 
being felt. Hence we know that the Bible states a false¬ 
hood when it declares that the darkness in question was 
felt. Besides this, we are informed that, during the whole 
three days of that fearful darkness, not one of the Egyp¬ 
tians rose from his place. We are also informed that, 
during this entire period, the Hebrews all had light in 
their houses. Can all this be true ? Even when claimed 
to be the history of a miracle, does the story come within 
the bounds of reasonable credibility? The Egyptians 
numbered several millions, and they were scattered over 
an extensive country. How, then, did the author ascertain 
that “ they saw not one another, neither rose any from his 



THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


379 


place for three days ?” Did he inquire of each one of them? 
And is it not utterly incredible—nay, is it not utterly im¬ 
possible, that several millions of men, women, and children 
should have lain still, for three whole days and nights, and 
not one of them be called by hunger, thirst, or any other 
necessity, to rise from his place? 

Besides all this, we are informed that, during this very 
period, Pharaoh sent for Moses. But, without rising from 
his place, how did the messenger manage to go for Moses ? 
And since this messenger and Moses managed to travel 
about from place to place, why could not the* rest of the 
people have managed to do so too? Would not a common 
terror have seized upon them all, and would they not, 
especially in the great cities, have made use of artificial 
lights, and assembled in immense crowds? Should three 
days of total darkness come over Europe or'America, at 
the present time, would not a single individual, think you, 
during all that time, arise from his place? Would not in¬ 
tense excitement, and uncontrollable fear, make all the 
people arise from their places? And w T hy did not the 
Egyptians, who were a people noted for their learning, 
ever make a record of any of these wonderful things? 

Besides all this, how did the Hebrews, during the three 
days in question, manage to have light in their houses? 
What kind of light was it? If it was artificial light, could 
not the far more wealthy Egyptians have had the same 
kind of light in their houses ? If it was sunlight, how did 
it reach the interior of the Hebrew houses without dissi¬ 
pating the dense darkness outside ? As I stated in a for¬ 
mer lecture, the ancients generally, if not universally, 
believed that' light was a kind of white gaseous clohd en¬ 
tirely independent of the sun, or of any other luminous 
body. On this idea, the author of Genesis finds no diffi¬ 
culty in having several perfect days before there was any 
sun. In order to produce day, he simply has to have this 
white cloud moved across the face of the earth. So, in the 
case before us, the author of Exodus, who is doubtless the 


380 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


same person, acting upon this same erroneous idea, lias 
portions of this same white cloud sliced off, and put into 
the Hebrew houses. Science, however, having now utterly 
overthrown this idea of light, has proved the whole story 
to be an absurd fabrication totally unworthy of belief. 

Another important miracle, said to have been performed 
by Moses, was the dividing of the waters of the Red Sea 
in such a way that the Hebrews passed through it on dry 
land. The power by which Moses is said to have per¬ 
formed this miracle, and all his other miracles, was bottled 
up in a wooden rod or wand which, after the manner of 
magicians, he used to wave over the object upon which he 
was operating. In the present instance, so the Bible 
informs us, the result of the waving of this rod over 
the Red Sea was to cause a strong east wind to blow, 
during one* whole night, in such a way as to drive 
the waters back, and render the bed of the sea dry land. 
Without calling attention to the monstrous absurdity of 
having power enough to control the winds bottled up in a 
small wooden rod, and made to go forth at the command 
of the party who held the rod, I will call your attention 
to other matters, which clearly show that the whole story 
is a pure fiction, and a very clumsy one at that. By ob¬ 
serving the trend of the northern part of the Red Sea, you 
will at once perceive that, so far from driving the waters 
back from that part of the sea, an east wind would inevi¬ 
tably have had the very opposite effect of driving them in 
from the great body of the sea, and thus rendering them 
deeper in the very part which the Hebrews are said to have 
crossed. A northwest wind might have done some good,, 
but an east wind was about the worst that could have 
blown. Indeed, this part of the story seems to be directly 
contradicted by another part which declares that* so far 
from being thus driven back out of the armlet in question,, 
the waters were still present, standing up like walls on 
the right hand and on the left of the Hebrews as. they 
were passing through ? 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


381 


Another noted miracle, said to have been performed 
by Moses, was the bringing of a large stream of water 
from a dry rock by simply striking the rock with the same 
wooden rod in which so much power was bottled up. The 
stream of water that gushed forth from this rock was 
amply sufficient to supply the wants of three millions of 
people and several times that number of cattle. In so 
hot and dry a climate, this would have required a small 
river. The rock from which this immense supply of water 
is said to have been thus obtained is still lying in its old 
place at the foot of Mount Sinai, and, by travelers who 
have seen it, is described as a block of red granite about 
eighteen feet in length and twelve feet in height. It is a 
loose and isolated rock, and seems at some very remote 
period to have fallen from the rocky side of the mountain, 
at the base of which it now lies. In the side of this rock 
there is said to be seen, at the present day, a cylindrical 
cavity about four inches in diameter and eighteen inches 
in depth. From this small cavity the river in question 
is said to have gushed forth. In this cavity, therefore, 
which evidently has not always existed in the rock, the 
true believer plainly sees the traces of God's power, which 
was once bottled up in a wooden rod. These traces he 
sees by means of his faith. In this same cavity, however, 
the unbeliever just as plainly sees the traces of a stone¬ 
-cutter s power, which was more recently bottled up in a 
chisel. These traces he sees with his own natural eyes , 
; and we are at liberty to agree with whichever party gives 
what seems to us to be the more reasonable explanation 
of the origin of that cavity. Since there never could 
have been any considerable quantity of water stored away 
in this rock, or in any other rock in that vicinity, the 
water in question must, of necessity, have been created 
all out of nothing as it flowed. But do you really believe 
that any such special creation ever occurred? 

In Num. xi, 31-33, we read : “ And there went forth a 
wind from the Lord, and brought quails from the sea, and 


382 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


let them fall by the camp, as it were a day’s journey on 
this side, and as it were a day’s journey on the other side, 
round about the camp, and as it were two cubits high on 
the face of the earth. And the people stood up all that 
day, and all that night, and all the next day, and they 
gathered the quails; he that gathered least gathered ten 
homers; and they spread them all abroad for themselves 
round about the camp. And while the flesh was yet be¬ 
tween their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of the Lord 
was kindled against the people, and the Lord smote the 
people with a very great plague.” This is gravely given as 
real history, but is it not utterly incredible ? Where was 
the Lord, and how far was he from the camp, when the 
wind in question went forth from him ? At which end of 
him did it go forth ? Could the wind have thus gone forth 
from him, without going where he was not ? Could he, 
then, have been omnipresent? If not, can he be so now? 
Besides this, what were these quails doing in the sea? Did 
they live there, or did the Lord, by a special creation, 
produce them there, and then send them forth directly 
from himself, just as he did the wind that carried them to 
the camp of the Hebrews? Certain champions of the 
Bible would fain have us believe that those quails came 
from the other side of the sea? The Bible, however, says 
that they were brought from the sea, not from beyond it. 
Besides this, what could so many quails have been doing 
on the other side of the sea, and how could the wind that 
went forth from the Lord have gathered up so many quails 
and nothing else? Extending as they did about a day’s 
journey on every side of the camp, those quails must 
have covered an area of about three thousand six hundred 
square miles, and being three and two-thirds feet deep, 
there must have been about twelve billion cubic yards of 
them, or at least thirty trillions of birds. Why did the 
Lord waste so many quails upon a single feast? 

Besides all this, “ he that gathered least gathered ten 
homers.” This would be over one hundred and eleven 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


383 


bushels of our measure. This being the least catch of all, 
the average catch to each man must have been several 
hundred bushels. Putting it at only two hundred bush¬ 
els, however, and supposing that only one-third of the 
people engaged in catching quails, we have two hundred 
million bushels of meat, or enough to load over six hun¬ 
dred thousand freight cars. But how could each man, in 
so short a time, have caught, dressed, and dried so many 
quails? With three and two-thirds feet in depth of putre¬ 
fying flesh all over the ground for a day’s journey on each 
side of the camp, where could the people have found room 
on which to spread abroad their six hundred thousand car 
loads or more of quails? And, with such surroundings, 
how could the people have lived? We all know that, 
placed thus in the center of a mass of carrion sixty miles 
in diameter, and three and two-thirds feet deep, not a sin¬ 
gle Hebrew could have survived to tell the story. Besides 
all these things, w r e are assured that, “ while the flesh was 
yet between their teeth, ere it was chewed, the wrath of 
the Lord was kindled against the people, and the Lord 
smote the people with a very great plague.” This is spoken 
of all the people, and is either true or false. If true, then, 
at precisely the same moment, three millions of people 
must have opened their mouths and taken flesh between 
their teeth; and then, before any one of them had begun 
to chew, “the wrath of the Lord was kindled,” etc. If 
this be a true story, may not the story of Jack the Giant- 
killer be also true ? Indeed, it wculd be just as easy for 
me to believe all that is related of Aladdin and his won¬ 
derful lamp, as it would be for me to believe all that is 
related of Moses and his wonderful wooden rod. 

I will next notice that unparalleled miracle, said to 
have been performed by Joshua, of causing the sun and 
the moon to stand still in midheaven for about one whole 
day. The account of this wonderful event is found in the 
tenth chapter of Joshua. From this account we learn 
that Joshua, having overthrown his enemies in battle, 


884 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


wished, according to his invariable custom on such occa¬ 
sions, to follow up his victory by butchering all the help¬ 
less and inoffensive women and children; and that, per¬ 
ceiving that he was not likely to have time enough to do 
this before night-fall, he said: “ Sun, stand thou still upon 
Gibeon, and thou Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.” We 
further learn that, in obedience to this command, “the 
sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to 
go down about a whole dry.” This made the day in ques¬ 
tion about twice as long as other days. 

This story professes to be ordinary history, and, of 
necessity, it must be either true or false. If true, what 
does its truth involve? What kind of a being does it 
make of God? Were not the victims of this horrible 
butchery just as much his children, just as much entitled 
to his love and his protection, as were the butchers them¬ 
selves? W T hy, then, did he exhibit so execrable a par¬ 
tiality toward the butchers? Why did he exhibit so 
incontinent a haste to have the poor victims in question 
butchered ? Did not he himself create the laws of nature ? 
Were not those laws perfect and right? If so, could they 
have ever needed any change or any suspension ? Could 
such laws have been either changed or suspended with¬ 
out involving wrong and imperfection? Could not God 
have afforded to let his own perfect and unchangeable laws 
have their course? Could he not have afforded to wait 
till the next day to have his own poor children butchered ? 
Could he not have afforded to allow them one sad night 
in which to mourn their loved ones already slain, and to 
prepare for the awful fate to which themselves were 
doomed ? Do you really believe that he ever had so in¬ 
satiate a thirst for the blood of his own children, of little 
smiling infants, and poor, helpless, heart-broken women, 
that he actually did thus suspend the.laws of the universe 
simply that he might, a few hours sooner, glut his sight 
with the horrible spectacle of their wholesale butchery ? 
Does not this story make him a thousand times worse 



THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


385 


than his instrument, the devil ? And has this monstrous 
God ever, since then, changed h.r the better? If not, how 
can you have the effrontery to ask intelligent men to serve 
him ? 

In order to believe this monstrous butcher story, we 
must, of necessity, first believe that the earth is flat and 
stationary, as the church, until quite recently, invariably 
taught that it was, and that the sun, the moon, and the 
stars all revolve daily around the earth as the great cen¬ 
tral body of the universe. Had not the sun been in motion, 
it would have been absurd in the extreme to command him, 
as Joshua did, to cease moving. It would also have been 
an absurd falsehood to declare, as the Bible does, that, in 
obedience to Joshua’s absurd command, the sun did cease 
moving, for about one whole day, and that he then re¬ 
sumed his former motion and went down. From the lan¬ 
guage in question, it is evident that Joshua understood 
the sun, and not the earth, to be the moving body. And 
the result of his command, if any such result ever followed, 
proved that his views were correct. This is the sense in 
which the Jews always understood this scripture. So of 
the Christian Church. This was one of the passages of 
scripture by which she often proved the immobility of the 
earth, the daily revolution of the sun, the moon, and the 
stars around the earth, and the consequently damnable 
heresy of those who had the intelligence and the temerity 
to teach what we now know to be the true system of 
astronomy. With this old and utterly exploded geocentric 
system of astronomy, and with this alone, can the scrip¬ 
ture in question be made to harmonize. This pretended 
miracle, then, is as thoroughly exploded as is the system 
of astronomy upon which it was based. If, then, you 
retain this absurd story of Joshua and the sun, you are 
bound to retain also the absurd system of astronomy upon 
which alone that story can rest. Indeed, since darkness 
and ignorance can never be made to harmonize with light 
and knowledge, the religion of an age of darkness and 


386 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ignorance can never be made to harmonize with the science 
of an age of light and knowledge. 

Many of the champions of the Bible, knowing how 
utterly in vain it would be to longer contend against the 
demonstrated truths of science, have been compelled to 
admit that the story of Joshua and the sun cannot be lit¬ 
erally true. With the unfairness characteristic of this 
class, however, these men attempt to sustain this mon¬ 
strous story by resorting, as is their wont in all such 
cases, to the most unwarrantable assumptions. Some of 
them admit that Joshua was ignorant of the true system 
of astronomy, and that, in his ignorance, he did an absurd 
thing when he commanded the sun to stand still. They 
assume, however, that God, knowing what Joshua wanted, 
kindly stopped for him the revolution of the earth on her 
own axis, and thus gave this ignorant and inhuman butcher 
a double day in which to accomplish his worse than hell¬ 
ish purposes. Others assume that Joshua himself prob¬ 
ably understood the true system of astronomy, but was 
obliged to adapt his language, on the occasion in question, 
to the understanding of the ignorant masses by whom he 
was surrounded. Both of these assumptions contradict 
the plain language of the Bible, which declares that the 
sun, and not the earth, did cease moving for the space of 
about one day, and that he then resumed his motion. If 
the story be not true as the Bible tells it, these assumption- 
ists can never make it true by any changes they may make 
in it in their attempts to make it harmonize "with the 
truths of science. No one who was sufficiently intelligent 
to understand the true system of astronomy, would ever 
have thought of such a thing as commanding the earth, 
the sun, or any other of the great bodies of the universe, 
to stand still in space while he should butcher a lot of 
women and children. And no one of so much intelligence 
would have thought of such a thing as asserting that such 
a command had been given, and had been obeyed. Such 
stories could originate only in the grossest ignorance, and 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


387 


those who believe them can have no just claim to intelli¬ 
gence. Indeed, you might as well attempt to make dark¬ 
ness harmonize with light, disease with health, vice with 
virtue, and deformity with perfection, as to attempt to 
make your Bible stories—your relics of the dark and 
bloody past—harmonize with the knowledge of the bright 
present, or with the hopes of the brighter future. 

Admitting, however, that, on the occasion in question, 
the earth did cease her diurnal revolution, would not the 
waters, and all other loose bodies on her surface, have 
kept right on at the rate of about one thousand miles an 
hour? Would not the oceans have swept over the conti¬ 
nents with a force that would have torn every mountain 
from its base? Could the butcher, Joshua, have kept 
his hold on the earth long enough to cut the throat of 
even one woman? You may claim, however, that, on this 
occasion, the law of inertia was also suspended. This 
claim, however, is a totally unwarrantable assumption. 
And, if it were true, how much would it help your cause ? 
In any view of the case, must there not have been, of 
necessity, over one entire half of the earth’s surface, a 
day of double the usual length, and over' the entire sur¬ 
face of the other half a night of correspondingly increased 
length ? Would not these extremely wonderful—these 
unutterably fearful—phenomena have created, among all 
the nations of the world, the most intense excitement, the 
most uncontrollable alarm ? And would not every nation 
have had some record, or, at least, some tradition, of these 
wonderful phenomena? How does it happen, then, that 
no people but the Jews have any such record, or any such 
tradition? And how does it happen that, even of the 
Jews, very few do now or ever did believe this monstrous 
story ? 

In 1 Chron. xxii, 14, we read: “Now behold, in my 
trouble I have prepared for the house of the Lord a hun¬ 
dred thousand talents of gold, and a thousand talents of 
silver; and of brass and iron without weight; for it is in 


388 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


abundance: timber also and stone have I prepared; and 
thou mayest add thereto.” This language is said to have 
been spoken by David to his son Solomon, to whom, on 
account of his own great age and many infirmities, he was 
about to resign his kingdom. In his wonderful work of 
preparing materials for the house of the Lord, David does 
not claim to have received any miraculous aid. His 
declaration, therefore, as above given, is more properly an 
extravagance in language than the statement of a miracu¬ 
lous event. On account of its incredible nature, however, 
I have determined to include David’s wonderful work in 
question among the pretended miracles of the Bible. 
Without noticing any of his other materials, let us exam¬ 
ine his pile of gold. Of this, he declares that he has pre¬ 
pared a “hundred thousand talents.” A Hebrew talent 
being equal to ninety-three and three-fourths pounds, this 
would give us four thousand six hundred and eighty-seven 
and one-half tons of gold. This would load at least four 
hundred and sixty-eight freight cars, and in round num¬ 
bers would be worth about $3,000,000,000. And all this 
gold was prepared by David, for one single purpose, in 
time of his trouble. If he had not been in trouble, how 
many hundred car-loads of gold do you suppose that he 
could have prepared? Where did he get so many thou¬ 
sand tons of gold, and what finally became of it? Can any 
intelligent person believe that, in a time of trouble, the 
king of a small nation of pastoral people, ever thus, for a 
single purpose, prepared some one thousand five hundred 
tons more gold than is now in the possession of the entire 
population of the world? 

In Jud. iii, 31, we learn that, with no weapon but an 
ox-goad, an enterprising young man by the name of Sliam- 
gar, at one time, slew six hundred well-armed men. In 
Jud. xv, 15, we also learn that another still more enter¬ 
prising young man by the name of Samson, with no weapon 
but the jaw-bone of an ass, at one time, slew one thousand 
well-armed men ; and that, when he had finished this little 


THE MIRACLES OF THE BIBLE. 


389 


job, he turned up the jaw bone and took a drink of water 
from a cavity inside of it. This same young man is said, 
on a future occasion, with his naked hands, to have over¬ 
turned a large stone building upon which were three thou¬ 
sand people, all of whom were slain by the fall of the 
building. And now, can any two of you look each other 
in the face, and, without laughing, say that you really be¬ 
lieve these monstrous stories ? 

The Bible declares that, on a certain occasion, three 
men were thrown into a furnace which was heated seven 
times hotter than it was wont to be heated, and that, nev¬ 
ertheless, they very coolly walked about in there, and 
finally came forth, without so much as having their hair 
singed, or their clothes scorched. Science, on the other 
hand, declares that no such events ever occurred; that so 
intense a heat could neither have been produced nor meas¬ 
ured, and that, if it could have been produced, it would 
have instantly converted those three men, hair, clothes, 
and all, into incandescent vapor. And which seems the 
more credible, the declaration of the Bible, or that of 
science ? 

The Bible declares that, for three days, the Kev. Jonah 
occupied lodgings inside of the maw of a fish ; and that he 
finally came forth alive and well, but a sadder and a better 
man. Science, on the other hand, declares that no such 
events ever occurred; that, if taken alive into the stomach 
of a fish, a man would be suffocated in a few moments, and 
would then be digested and converted into nutriment for 
the fish. Which is the more reasonable declaration ? The 
Bible declares that, on a certain occasion, a certain ass 
opened its mouth and exhorted like a Methodist preacher 
at a camp-meeting. Science, on the other hand, declares 
that no ass of that species every exhorted in any such 
manner. Which declaration is most worthy of belief? 
The Bible teaches that Elijah, body, soul, and all, went up 
to heaven in a chariot of fire drawn by horses of fire. 
Science, on the other hand, declares that no man ever went 


390 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


to any such place, in any such manner. Which declara¬ 
tion is most in accordance with reason and common sense ? 

There are hundreds more pretended miracles men¬ 
tioned in the Bible, but, for want of time, I must leave 
them unnoticed. Like those which I have noticed, they 
would all crumble, as it were, to dust, at the touch of 
reason, science, and common sense. And now, in conclu¬ 
sion, let me ask, if any miracles were ever really per¬ 
formed, why are not similar miracles performed in our 
own time? Is not God as able to perform them, or to 
have them performed, as he ever was ? And do not men 
need them now as much as they ever did? Are not just as 
many men going to hell now from unbelief as at any for¬ 
mer period ? Why, then, does not God give us miracles, 
and thus enable us to believe ? Are not we as much his 
children, and as much dependent upon him, as were the 
Jews? Are not our claims upon him as just as were 
theirs ? Is he not horribly cruel and unjust to damn us 
for not having the faith which he alone could give us, but 
which he purposely withholds from us ? Would it not be 
just as easy for him to give us faith, and save us, as it is 
for him to leave us in unbelief, and damn us ? Does he 
take more pleasure in damning us than he does in saving 
us ? If God fails to give us faith, and then damns us for 
not having it, is he not a horrible monster, worthy only of 
execrations ? Finally, you may be damned if you do not 
believe all the absurd stories which I have noticed, but I 
will be damned if I do believe them. 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


391 


LECTURE TWELFTH. 

ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 

From its very foundation, the Christian Church has 
always taught that, in its entirety, the Bible is the “ In¬ 
spired Word of God,” and that all its teachings are true, 
reasonable, and proper. So generally has this teaching 
been accepted that, throughout all Christendom, to even 
doubt the truth, the reasonableness, or the propriety of 
any portion of the Accepted Version of the Bible has 
always been held to constitute an unpardonable form of 
Infidelity, and to inevitably doom the persistent doubter 
to the unutterable torments of an endless hell. 

We would naturally expect, therefore, to find this book, 
like its reputed author, absolutely perfect in all its depart¬ 
ments. We would certainly expect to find it entirely free 
from all those grosser faults and imperfections that destroy 
all claim to merit or credibility even in a professedly 
human production. At any rate, we would certainly not 
expect to find it filled with positive self-contradictions, 
utterly irreconcilable discrepancies, glaring inconsist¬ 
encies, palpable absurdities, shocking indecencies, and 
monstrous immoralities. To suppose that it contained 
any of these extremely gross faults and imperfections 
would be simply to suppose that it proceeded from an 
extremely gross, faulty, and imperfect source. 

The Bible is simply an effect of which its author or 
producer is the cause, and no effect can possibly contain 
any element not found in its cause. When, therefore, I 


392 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


shall have proved that the Bible is crowded with all of the 
gross faults and imperfections which I have named, I will 
have proved that it is derived from a gross, faulty, and 
imperfect source. If, then, that source be divine, as 
claimed by the champions of the Bible, I will have proved 
God to be a gross, faulty, and imperfect being. If that 
source be human, I will have proved all that I claim. I 
will have proved that the Bible is a grossly faulty and im¬ 
perfect human production, totally unworthy of our belief 
or our respect. In either case, I will have proved the 
champions of the Bible to be base impostors and the 
Christian religion to be a monstrous priestly imposition. 

Although it has been admitted, by high Church author¬ 
ity, that, as we now have it, the Bible contains at least 
twenty-four thousand errors, I shall not be able, in the' two 
lectures which I shall devote to them, to notice more than 
one in every five hundred of this prodigious number. One 
five-hundredth part, however, of the errors of the Bible 
would effectually condemn any other book. 

In Ex. xx, 11, we read: “ For in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is.” In 
former lectures I fully proved that this language is errone¬ 
ous, utterly false, and that no such creation as it describes 
ever occurred at all. I need not, therefore, add anything 
to those proofs now. If this creation ever occurred at all, 
it evidently included everything that ever was created. 
We have no account, no tradition even, of any earlier or 
of any later creation. Of this universal creation we read: 
“ And God saw everything that he had made : and behold, 
it was very good ” (Gen. i, 31). Of necessity, this latter 
declaration is either true or false. Which is it? The 
serpent was included in that creation, but was he “ very 
good?” Has not his whole subsequent career gone to 
prove that he was not “very good?” Man was included 
in that creation, but was he “very good?” Would God 
have been grieved at his heart, as he afterwards was, that 
he made man, if man had really been “ very good ? ” The 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


393 


devil was included in that creation, but has not his whole 
subsequent career gone to prove that he was not “ very 
good? ” Evil was included in that creation (Is. xlv, J), but 
are we to understand that evil was “ very good?” 

“ But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, 
thou slialt not eat of it, for in the day that thou eatest 
of it thou shalt surely die ” (Gen. ii, 17). If this language 
means anything at all, it is bound to mean exactly what it 
expresses. It was addressed to Adam immediately after 
the creation. Notwithstanding this totally uncalled-for 
and ferocious threat, however, Adam proceeded, without 
any unnecessary delay, to partake of that forbidden fruit. 
And did he die, as God had said that he should, on the 
very day on which he partook of that fruit ? He certainly 
did not. So far from dying on that very day, he lived 
right on for nine hundred and thirty years, and then died, 
not from the effects of eating fruit, but from extreme old 
age. The Bible, therefore, represents God as speaking a 
falsehood when he declared that Adam should die on the 
very day on which he should eat of the fruit in question. 
If, then, the Bible account of this affair be correct, God 
stands before us convicted of having, at the very beginning 
of his intercourse with man, very unnecessarily resorted 
to the detestable and grossly immoral practice of lying. 
Was God thus early a shameless liar? If not, if he did 
not thus lie on the occasion in question, then the Bible 
certainly does lie when it represents him as having done 
so. And does not the Bible err when it thus slanders 
God, when it thus makes a liar of the infinitely great and 
glorious power that sustains the universe? 

In Ex. xxiv, 9-11, we read: “ Then went up Moses and 
Aaron, Nadab and Abiliu, and seventy of the elders of 
Israel: and they saw the God of Israel: and there was 
under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, 
and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness. And 
upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his 
hand: also they saw God and did eat and drink.” In Is. 


394 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


vi, 1-5, we also read : “In the year that King Uzziah died 
I saw also the Lord, sitting upon a throne, high and lifted 
up, and his train filled the temple.!’ Many other Bible 
characters also claim to have seen God; to have seen his 
face, his hands, his feet, his head, his hack parts, etc. ; in 
short, they claim to have seen his entire person, his posi¬ 
tion of sitting or of standing, etc. But did any of them 
thus see him? John i, 18, answers this question as fol¬ 
lows : “ No man hath seen God at any time.” Many other 
Bible characters also unite with John in contradicting the 
testimony of those persons who claim to have seen God. 
Of necessity, the testimony of one set or the other of 
these witnesses is bound to be false. 

“ And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto 
him, Where art thou? And he said, I heard thy voice ‘in 
the garden : and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I 
hid myself ” (Gen. iii, 9-10). Moses, also, and many other 
Bible characters claim to have heard God's voice. To those 
who set up this claim, however, John (v, 37) says: “Ye 
have neither heard his voice at any time nor seen his shape." 
Here, again, one set or the other of the witnesses unde¬ 
niably give false testimony. 

“ And it came to pass after these things that God did 
tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he 
said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy 
son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get 
thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for 
a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I 
will tell thee of. And Abraham rose up early in the 
morning, and saddled his ass, and took two of his young 
men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for 
the burnt offering, and rose up, and went into the place 
of which God had told him ” (Gen. xxii, 1-3). 

From this, we learn that God certainly did tempt Abra¬ 
ham, and successfully too, to commit one of the most atro¬ 
cious crimes of which the human mind can conceive: the 
crime of butchering, in cold blood, and roasting, if not 



ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


395 


eating, his own son. The fact that Abraham was not per¬ 
mitted to consummate this monstrous crime has nothing 
to do in the case. The temptation was just as real, and its 
effect upon Abraham’s moral nature just as pernicious, as 
they would have been had the crime been actually com¬ 
mitted. It is a man’s ivillingness to commit crime that 
renders him a criminal. This fact is so evident that I 
suppose no one will attempt to dispute it. It is also 
equally evident that a man who, like Abraham, deliberately 
undertakes to commit a horrible crime, and is prevented 
from committing it only by the unexpected interference 
of other parties, is at heart just as much a criminal as he 
would have been had those other parties not prevented 
the commission of the crime. 

From all this, it is evident that Abraham, being per¬ 
fectly willing to commit the horrible crime of butchering 
and roasting his own son, and having deliberately under¬ 
taken to accomplish this crime, was, in principle, just as 
much a criminal as he would have been had there been no 
unexpected interference on the part of other persons. 
That interference did not make the slightest change in his 
moral nature, or render him a particle better than he 
would have been had it not occurred. In his moral 
nature, he was just as much a bloody murderer as he 
w r ould have been had he not been prevented from accom¬ 
plishing the premeditated murder which he w as in the act 
of committing when he was interrupted. He was just as 
much a bloody murderer as any man w r ould now be who 
should deliberately butcher, dress, and roast, as he would 
a pig, his own innocent child. 

And, according to the teachings of the Bible, Abraham 
was made thus, at heart, an atrocious murderer by the 
direct temptation of God. We . are further taught by the 
Bible that this atrocious criminality—this wish, this 
deliberate attempt to butcher, to roast, and to serve up to 
God, as an article of food—which God did not need—his 
own innocent son, was imputed, by God himself, to Abra- 


396 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ham for righteousness. Had Abraham been unwilling to 
commit the horrible crime in question—had he refused to 
commit it, he certainly would not have been righteous in 
God’s sight. Since, then, God never changes, it is evident 
that, according to these teachings, he can not now look 
upon any man as righteous who would not be perfectly will¬ 
ing, if called upon so to do, to butcher, as he would a pig, 
to dress, to roast, and to serve up his own child upon God’s 
table. How very righteous, how very fit for heaven, must 
he regard Freeman and others who, making Abraham, as 
the Bible makes him, their model, have, by butchering 
their own children, faithfully carried out, in our own time, 
both the letter and the spirit of the Bible’s teachings in 
regard to this matter. But how shockingly blasphemous 
it is to attribute to God teachings so fearfully ruinous to 
the moral natures of all who thus accept them as of divine 
authority! Is it not r great error in the Bible to teach, 
as coming from God, doctrines so damnable in their inev¬ 
itable tendencies? We are bound either to condemn 
these teachings, or to approve the acts of Freeman, Gui- 
teau, and the others who, in obedience to these teachings, 
have sacrificed their own children or others to this same 
roast-meat-loving God. Which of these things will my 
opponents do? 

“And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, that he shall 
follow after them ” (Ex. xiv, 4). Elsewhere we learn that, 
on many other occasions, God successfully tempted 
Pharaoh to do things which, without such temptation, lie 
would not have done. God is represented as doing this, 
too, simply that he might have a pretext for destroying 
Pharaoh, and many of the people, and all of the cattle of 
Egypt. But why did he wish to destroy this king, these 
people, and these cattle? He is made to answer this 
question himself by saying: “I will [by means of these 
wholesale slaughters] be honored upon Pharaoh, and upon 
all his host; that the Egyptians may know that I am the 
Lord ” (Ex. xiv, 4). 



ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


397 


Pharaoli, it seems, did nothing but what God wished 
him to do, and compelled him to do. And yet, according 
to the teachings of the Bible, because of this enforced 
obedience on Pharaoh’s part, God cruelly destroyed not 
only this poor, helpless king himself, but, also, many hun¬ 
dreds of thousands, if not millions, of innocent men, 
women, children, and cattle that had nothing at all to do 
with the king’s acts. This blasphemous story represents 
God as the most atrocious of all bloody monsters. And 
yet the champions of the Bible have the effrontery to hold 
up this monster, in all his hideousness, as the perfection— 
the very fountain itself—of all goodness, and to require us, 
on pain of eternal damnation—whatever that may be—to 
love him, to worship him, and to become as nearly like 
him as possible. 

So long as the people, from their very infancy, are 
stuffed with such teachings,- so long as their lives are 
fashioned after this monstrous model, just so long will all 
Christendom continue to be, of necessity, as it always has 
been, dark with blood, and fearfully foul with every form 
of immorality and crime. In teaching these pernicious 
doctrines, in holding up this monstrous model for the 
imitation of the world, the Bible is undeniably guilty of 
a very grave error; and the champions of the Bible are 
guilty of au equally grave error, when they place this 
book, so destructive to true morality and virtue, in the 
hands of children, of heathens, and of other ignorant per¬ 
sons, wdio, above all others, are most liable to be ruined 
in their moral natures, by such teachings. 

“ If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of 
dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign 
or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, 
saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not 
known, and let us serve them, thou slialt not hearken unto 
the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, for 
the Lord your God proveth you to know whether ye love 
the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your 


398 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


soul” (Deut. xiii, 1-3). In these passages, God is repre¬ 
sented as sending true prophets, and as having true won¬ 
ders or miracles performed, for the express purpose of 
tempting or misleading the people into the practice of 
idolatry. He is represented as doing this, too, simply 
to ascertain whether they do or do not love him. This 
represents him as a pitifully ignorant, a despicably jeal¬ 
ous, and a shockingly deceitful being. In order to prove 
to him that they love him, the people must reject the true 
prophecies and the genuine wonders or miracles which he 
himself gives them. 

In other places, God is represented as threatening to 
make the people feel the dire effects of his wrath if they 
do not obey the teachings of those projdiets who prove 
that their mission is of God by thus performing genuine 
miracles or correctly predicting future events. Here, how¬ 
ever, he forbids the people to obey the teachings of such 
prophets. Through one prophet he commands the people 
to do certain things; through another equally true prophet, 
he forbids them to do these things. We can never know, 
therefore, whether it is safer to obey or to disobey his com¬ 
mands. Even Jesus, knowing the extremely doubtful 
character of this God, his own*putative father, earnestly 
begs him to “ Lead us not into temptation.” If God was 
never wont to lead men into temptation, would Jesus have 
ever thought of giving us such a form of prayer ? What, 
then, are we to think of James, who flatly contradicts all 
these teachings, by saying: “ Let no man say when he is 
tempted, I am tempted of God : for God cannot be tempted 
with evil, neither tempteth lie any man: but every man is 
tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and 
enticed ” (Jas. i, 13, 14). And now are we to be damned 
if we believe that God does , or that he does not , tempt 
men ? Among these witnesses, there is certainly a lie out. 
Who tells it ? 

As you are doubtless all well aware, a great portion of 
of what is called the Pentateuch is filled with what pro- 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


399 


fess to be commandments of God to the Hebrews con¬ 
cerning the offering of sacrifices, the observance of the 
Sabbath, the celebration of feasts, etc. Through Jere¬ 
miah, however, God is made to emphatically deny that he 
ever gave any such commandments. “Thus saith the 
Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Put your burnt offerings 
unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto 
your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I 
brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt 
offerings or sacrifices ” (Jer. vii, 21, 22). Through Isaiah, 
also, God is made to indignantly deny that he was ever so 
foolish as to command the people to offer sacrifices to him¬ 
self, to observe the Sabbaths, the new moons, etc. “ To 
what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me ? 
saith the Lord. I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, 
and the fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood 
of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. When ye come 
to appear before me, who hath required this at your hand 
to tread my courts ? Bring no more vain oblations; 
incense is an abomination unto me; the new-moons and 
Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; 
it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new-moons 
and your appointed feasts my soul hateth; they are a 
trouble unto me; I am weary with them ” (Is. i, 11-14). 
If Jeremiah and Isaiah speak the truth, then it is an unde¬ 
niable fact that the Pentateuch is, to a great extent, filled 
with falsehoods. In any view of the case, Jeremiah and 
Isaiah, rejecting, as they certainly did, nearly all there was 
of the Bible in their day, were certainly a couple of incor¬ 
rigible Infidels. Were they eternally damned for being 
such ? 

“And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against 
Israel, and lie [God himself] moved David against them to 
say. Go, number Israel and Judah ” (2 Sam. xxiv, 1). Here 
God himself is represented as the instigator of that affair 
of numbering the people. This passage, however, is posi¬ 
tively contradicted by 1 Chron. xxi, 1, which says: “And 


400 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to 
number Israel.” If either one of these two contradictory 
passages be true, which one is it? The Bible certainly 
errs in thus giving two utterly irreconcilable accounts of 
the same event. 

“ A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is 
he” (Deut. xxxii, 4). “Good and upright is the Lord” 
(Ps. xxv, 8). “ Righteous art thou, O Lord, and upright 

are thy judgments ” (Ps. cxix, 137). “ Thou earnest down 

also upon Mount Sinai, and spakest with them from 
heaven, and gavest them right judgments, and true laws, 
good statutes and commandments ” (Neh. ix, 13). Now 
compare this set of quotations, which give God a most ex¬ 
cellent character, with the following, which give him a 
very bad character: “I form the light, and create dark¬ 
ness ; I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all 
these things ” (Is. xlv, 7). “ Shall there be evil in a city? 

and the Lord hath not done it?” (Amos iii, 6). “Where¬ 
fore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and 
judgments whereby they should not live; and I polluted 
them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through 
the fire all that openetli the womb, that I might make them 
desolate, to the end that they might know that I am the 
Lord ” (Ezek. xx, 25, 26). “ For I the Lord thy God am a 

jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the 
children unto the third and fourth generation of them that 
hate me ” (Ex. xx, 5). Since these two sets of passages 
give utterly irreconcilable descriptions of God’s character, 
the one set or the other is bound to be false. 

“ The Lord is gracious, and full of compassion : slow to 
anger, and of great mercy. The Lord is good to all: and 
his tender mercies are over all his works” (Ps. cxlv, 8, 9). 
“ God is love: and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in 
God, and God in him” (1 John iv, 16). Now compare the 
glorious character of God, as given in these passages, with 
the monstrous character given of him in the following pas¬ 
sages. When you have made this comparison, you will be 



ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


401 


compelled to admit that the one set of these passages or 
the other are bound to be false. “ The Lord is a man of 
war ” (Ex. xv, 3). “ For the Lord thy God is a consuming 

fire, even a jealous God ” (Deut. iv, 24). “ Then I said, I 

would pour out my fury upon them, to accomplish my 
anger against them in the wilderness” (Ezek. xx, 21). “I 
said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the 
remembrance of them to cease from among men; were it 
not that I feared the wrath of the enemy , lest their adver¬ 
saries should behave themselves strangely, and lest they 
should say, Our hand is high, and the Lord hath not done 
all this ” (Deut. xxxii, 27). What a miserable God he was 
to thus fear the wrath of a few small tribes of barbarians 
that he himself professed to have made—to thus fear that 
those barbarians would make fun of him, if he should per¬ 
form his will upon his rebellious favorites by destroying 
them! A cowardly God! What an idea! 

“ And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of 
Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and 
out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every 
man his brother , and every man his corfij^anion, and every 
man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did according 
to the word of Moses: and there fell of the people that 
day about three thousand men. For Moses had said, Con¬ 
secrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, even every man 
upon his son, and upon his brother; that he may bestow 
upon you a blessing this day” (Ex. xxxii, 27-29). The 
Douay or Catholic Bible puts the number of men slain on 
this occasion at twenty-three thousand, instead of only 
three thousand as given here. Whatever may have been 
the number of the slain, however, the slaying of them thus 
in so cruel and treacherous a manner, by men as guilty 
as themselves, was certainly a most fearfully atrocious 
murder. Besides constituting a positive contradiction, 
therefore, to those passages that represent God as “ gra¬ 
cious,” “ good to all,” etc., this passage represents him as 
promising his blessing to those only who will, in cold 


402 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


blood, treacherously murder their own unarmed and 
unsuspecting neighbors, companions, brothers, and sons. 

Does not the Bible greatly err in thus representing the 
infinitely great and glorious power that rules the universe 
as so bloody-minded and so treacherous a monster ? And 
do not the champions of the Bible also greatly err in urg¬ 
ing, as they do, the young and the ignorant to make this 
imaginary monster, so unspeakably hideous, the model 
after which to fashion their lives and thei* characters? 
Can we longer wonder that the history of the believers in 
the Bible is more foul with blood and dark with crime 
than is that of any other people ? Can such models and 
such teachings have any other tendency than to crush out 
all that is noble in the natures of men, and to render them 
cruel, treacherous, blood-thirsty, and unjust? Can we 
hope that the worshipers of such a God will ever become 
better than is the God himself? 

Should this same God now, for some trivial offense of 
which you were yourselves equally guilty, require you 
thus, in cold blood, to treacherously butcher your own 
unsuspecting brothers, sisters, children, and other dear 
ones, what would you think of him, and what action would 
you take in regard to the fulfilling of his requirement? 
Would you'still shout his praises, and would you promptly 
proceed, as did the children of Levi, to commit the foul 
murders required of you ? If you would do these things, 
then, like Freeman, Guiteau, and other horrible murderers, 
you are true and consistent worshipers of this monstrous 
God. You are just such persons as the teachings of the 
Bible tend to produce. If, however, you would not 
do these things, then you are certainly hypocrites and 
infidels, and not true Christians—not true followers of the 
Lord. But why would you not do these things? Why 
would you refuse to murder your children and other loved 
ones, if God should require you to do so? Would it not 
be just as right and proper for him to require such mur¬ 
ders at your hands as it was for him to require them at 



ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


403 


the hands of the children of Israel? And would it not be 
just as much your duty to obey him as it was the duty 
of the children of Israel? Would not such murders, on 
your part, just as much entitle you to God’s blessing, as 
they did the children of Israel, when committed by them? 
And has God ever changed? If not, is he not just as 
likely to require us to murder our children and other 
loved ones as he ever w T as to require any other people to 
murder theirs ? 

Be all this as it may, however, you admit that God did 
require his followers to commit the horrible murders in 
question, that he did bless the murderers for their foul 
act, and that he is no better now than he was then. You 
are compelled, therefore, either to claim that such murders 
are right and proper, whether committed by the children 
of Israel or by your own neighbors; that they entitle the 
murderers to God’s blessing, and that, if required so to do, 
you are willing to commit them yourselves, or else to 
admit that they are, at all times, horribly wicked; that the 
God who ever required them to be committed is a hideous 
monster, that yourselves are the worshipers of just such 
a monster, and that, in thus worshiping him, you are 
either base hypocrites, not believing what you profess, or 
else that you are true Christians striving to render your¬ 
selves and your children as much like this monster as 
possible. And now which horn of this dilemma will you 
take? For my own part, I have no use either for this 
hideous monster or for the pernicious book that teaches 
me to be like him ? 

“ And they warred against the Midianites, as the Lord 
commanded Moses ? and they slew all the males. . . . 

And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian 
captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all 
their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. And 
they burnt all their cities, wherein they dwelt, and all 
their goodly castles, with fire. (With what else could 
they have burnt these things?) And they took all the 


404 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts. And 
they brought the captives, and the prey, and the spoil 
unto Moses and Eleazar the priest, and unto the congrega¬ 
tion of the children of Israel, unto the camp at the plains 
of Moab, which are by Jordan, near Jericho. And Moses 
and Eleazar the priest, and all the princes of the congre¬ 
gation, went forth to meet them, without the camp. And 
Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the 
captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds which 
came from the battle. And Moses said unto them, Have 
ye saved all the women alive? . . . Now, therefore, 

kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman 
that hath known man by lying with him. But all the 
women children that have not known man by lying with 
him, keep alive for yourselves ” (Ex. xxxi, 7-18). 

Does this, the most horrible of all the butcheries re¬ 
corded in the annals of history, go to prove that “ God is 
love,” that he “ is good to all,” that he is “full of compas¬ 
sion,” that “ his tender mercies are over all his works,” 
etc.? And, if it ever occurred at all, this fearfully 
atrocious butchery was committed upon the poor unpre¬ 
pared and inoffensive Midianites simply because they 
worshiped another God, and because they had vast 
numbers of cattle, sheep, and women that God wanted for 
his own chosen band of robbers and cut-throats, the 
Hebrews. In a poem, entitled “ The Devil’s Defense,” I 
have tried to depict this unspeakably brutal butchery: 

“ The Lord is a man of war,” ’tis said, 

A fierce, a consuming fire ; 

And millions of the ghastly dead, 

Might speak of his terrible ire. 

He doth not pity, he doth not spare, 

He cruelly doth destroy; 

He doth not care for the wailing prayer, 

To him ’tis a source of joy. 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


405 


He ordereth his band, with a bloody hand, 

To butcher both young and old ; 

To render the land, like a waste of sand, 

Where the billows once have rolled. 

They hasten to do what the Lord doth command, 

Like demons let loose, they lay waste the whole land. 
Alas, for their victims ! wherever they turn, 

Destruction awaits while their villages burn. 

Great volumes of smoke, like a vast floating pall, 

Hang dark o’er the valleys, the mountains, and all; 

From the depths of their darkness, arise in the air, 

Such yells of defiance, such screams of despair, 

That all the foul fiends of the caverns of hell 
Could never this scene in its horrors excel. 

Of brave men and mighty, but few now remain, 

Their bodies lie scattered all over the plain ; 

But these few survivors, like wild beasts at bay, 

For their homes and their loved ones, still battle away; 
But, beaten by numbers, their eyes gleaming fire, 

They scream their defiance, they fall, they expire. 

Now bursts forth anew, on the smoke-burdened air, 
Most terrible wailings of utter despair ; 

Old women, with hair like the pure driven snow, 

Are butchered, and left to be food for the crow. 

The fond mothers flee with their babes at the breast, 

Oh! could they save these, they’d endure all the rest! 
But, alas for these mothers! in vain do they flee, 

The light of to-morrow they never will see; 

For God’s servants meet them, around them there rains 
A shower of blood mixed with their babies’ crushed brains; 
Oh ! horrible ! horrible ! maddening sight! 

Haste thee, deep darkness, and hide it in night! 

The poor mothers cling to the bodies yet hot, 

They gaze in the eyes, but are recognized not; 

The lips that so lately were wreathed in a smile, 

All mangled and gory still quiver awhile; 

Death’s pallor creeps over each poor little face. 


406 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


The heart-beatings cease, and the eyes glaze apace. 

The mothers see this, and are now glad to die, 

No longer they struggle, no longer they cry; 

Their throats are now cut, and their blood, like a spout, 
On their babies’ dead faces comes gushing right out; 
Their bodies unburied encumber the sod, 

And this is all done by the orthodox God. 

Suppose that, in order to gratify some unaccountable 
whim on his own part, God should now select, for his own 
special favorites, some cruel, licentious, and avaricious 
people more powerful than ourselves; suppose that he 
should take up his abode in a little wooden box among 
this people, devote his entire time to their interests, and 
treat all other people as enemies; suppose, too, that, for 
the use of these his special favorites, he should desire to 
seize upon our flocks, our herds, and our women ; suppose, 
finally, that, in order to secure all these coveted objects, he 
should have us all slain in battle for which we were not 
prepared, our mothers, our wives, our married sisters and 
daughters, together with our male infants, all butchered in 
cold blood, and our virgin sisters and daughters all divided 
out to be outraged at pleasure by their brutal murderers, 
would his atrocious conduct show that he is a God of love, 
that he “is good to all,” that he is “full of compassion,” 
that “ his tender mercies are over all his works,” etc. ? 
And would these unutterably foul deeds be any worse, if 
perpetrated upon ourselves and our loved ones, than they 
were when perpetrated upon the Midianites and others ? 
O Christian ! Christian! how greatly do you err in trying 
to be like this monstrous God, and in trying to make your 
children and others like him! Is he any better now than 
he was then? 

“ And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, 
both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, 
and ass, with the edge of the sword ” (Josh, vi, 21). For 
a long list of such atrocious butcheries, committed upon 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE.. 


407 


unoffending people and their cattle, see the entire book of 
Joshua, and especially the tenth chapter. Joshua is rep¬ 
resented as invariably butchering, in cold blood, without 
any distinction of age, sex, or condition, all that fell into 
his power. He is represented, too, as committing all these 
foul butcheries by the direct command of the God that 
you worship. The whole bloody history closes as follows: 
“And all these kings and their land did Joshua take at 
one time; because the Lord God of Israel fought for 
Israel.” Was this blood-thirsty “Lord God of Israel” a 
a fit object to be held up to the people of the present day 
as a model for their imitation? And do not these accounts 
of his horrible cruelties effectually contradict those pas¬ 
sages which represent him as being “ good to all,” as be¬ 
ing a God whose “tender mercies are over all his works,” 
etc. ? If the accounts of his horrible butcheries be true, 
must not the assertions that he is “good to all,” etc., 
necessarily be false? In any view of the case, is not the 
Bible a book of errors ? 

Besides all these horrible deeds, committed by your 
adopted Hebrew God, he accepted Jephthah’s daughter as 
a burnt offering, as food upon which he regaled himself, in 
return for a victory which he had given Jephthah over the 
Ammonites (See Jud. xi). In the twenty-first chapter of 
2 Samuel, we learn that he also demanded and accepted as 
sacrifices seven innocent children in atonement for an 
offense committed by their grandfather many years before 
their birth. David, the man above all others after God’s 
own heart, had these hideous sacrifices offered to God, 
although five of them were his own orphaned step-sons. 
The ninth verse says: “And he delivered them into the 
hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the hill 
before the Lord.” From the next verse, we learn that the 
friends of these poor murdered children were not permitted 
to take their bodies down for burial. This is clear from 
the fact that the mother of two of the children, to 
keep the birds and beasts of prey from feeding upon 


408 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


their bodies, lay near them, day and night, on the cold 
hard rock, from the time of barley-harvest, when they 
were hanged, till the rains of autumn began to fall upon 
them. Then nothing remained of them but their bones,, 
and these, as we learn further on, had evidently fallen 
apart and lay scattered upon the ground. These bones 
were finally gathered up and buried. “And after that God 
was entreated for the land.” In other words, by this 
monstrous offering, his wrath was appeased, and he re¬ 
moved the famine with which for three years he had been 
afflicting the people, afflicting them, too, for an offense of 
which none of them was guilty. 

The other five children, being full orphans, had no 
fond mother to guard their dead bodies. David, their 
stepfather, the man so peculiarly after God’s own heart, 
was in his harem, reveling with his many wives and con¬ 
cubines, and thus doing that which “was right in the 
sight of the Lord,” while the bodies of these poor mur¬ 
dered children, whose protector he should have been, 
were slowly dropping to pieces in the sun and the rain. 
Picture to yourself the unutterable agony of that loving 
mother as she kept her lone vigils, day and night, for 
long weary months, while the bodies of her poor murdered 
children were dropping to pieces before her face. Picture 
to yourself your own loved little ones thus murdered by 
order of your God; picture to yourself the agony of their 
mother watching their bodies thus drop to pieces in the 
sun; picture to yourself all these things, and then, if you 
can do so, shout this bloody God’s praises, declare that he 
is “good to all,” that “his tender mercies are over all his 
works,” etc., and that he is a proper model after which to 
fashion our lives. 

I have dwelt at length upon these matters, because I 
wish you to understand that there is an utter inconsistency 
between the character of God, as portrayed by the empty 
words of his abject flatterers, and that portrayed by his 
recorded acts. According to the words of his flatterers, he 



ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


409 


appears to liave been a model of perfection. Judging his 
character, however, from his acts, he must have been the 
most hideous of all monsters. Which of these two con¬ 
trary characters did he really possess? Which one of 
them does he now possess? What really good act has he 
ever done ? 

It has always been claimed by the champions of the 
Bible that this book is the great fountain whence all our 
ideas of morality are derived. The justness of this claim 
I deny; and in a future lecture, I will prove that, taken as 
a whole, the Bible is one of the most prolific of all sources 
of immorality. In my present lecture, I simply wish to 
show that, in regard to its moral teachings, the Bible is 
utterly self-contradictory; that it gives us two entirely 
different sets of moral teachings, the one of which, though 
rarely if ever sustained by example, inculcates a morality 
of a high and noble character, while the other, sustained 
by vast numbers of examples, inculcates a morality, or 
rather an immorality, of an exactly opposite character. 
Let us now see whether these remarks be true in regard 
to the Bible’s teachings concerning the sexual relations. 

All the common forms of immorality, arising from an 
abuse of the sexual relations, may be classified under the 
following three heads: polygamy, fornication, and adultery. 
In regard to polygamy, including concubinage, the Bible 
is entirely self-consistent; every passage in it, bearing 
upon the subject at all, being unequivocally in favor of 
this form of ■ immorality. Of polygamy, therefore, I need 
not now say anything more. In regard to fornication and 
adultery, we read: “Thou shalt not commit adultery” 
(Ex. xx, 14). “Be not deceived; neither fornicators, nor 
idolaters, nor adulterers. . . shall inherit the kingdom of 
God ” (1 Cor. vi, 9, 10). “ But whoso committeth adultery 

with a woman, lacketh understanding: he that doeth it, 
destroyeth his own soul ” (Prov. vi, 32). “Elee fornica¬ 
tion ; every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but 
he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own 


410 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


body ” (1 Cor. yi, 18). These passages certainly condemn 
both fornication and adultery, whatever they may be. 

As to what constitutes fornication, and what adultery, 
there is a difference of opinion among the highest author¬ 
ities. Some hold that sexual intercourse constitutes 
adultery, if either one of the parties engaged in the act be 
bound in marriage to a third party. Others hold that the 
sexual act constitutes adultery only when the woman 
is thus bound; that, if she be unmarried, the act, although 
committed by a married man, does not constitute a higher 
offense than fornication. Although this latter view is not 
now held by the majority of the people, the preponder¬ 
ance of evidence is, nevertheless, largely in its favor. In¬ 
deed, the word adultery means simply the act of adulter¬ 
ating or mixing; and a man can adulterate or mix his 
neighbor’s family only by having sexual intercourse with 
his neighbor’s wife. 

At any rate, the Bible, with which alone we now have 
to do, clearly confines adultery to those cases of illicit 
sexual intercourse in which the woman is another man’s 
wife. Indeed, both adultery and fornication were confined, 
by the Jews, to those cases alone, in which, by the sexual 
act, a man invaded his neighbor’s rights of property. 
Among them, a man could no more commit one of these 
offenses upon his own woman property than he could 
commit larceny upon his own money. This was equally 
true whether the man’s right to the woman was a per¬ 
manent one obtained by capture, purchase, or inheritance, 
or only a temporary one obtained by loan or hire. If a 
man either hired or loaned his wife, or any of his other 
woman property, for sexual purposes, the hirer or bor¬ 
rower, in holding sexual intercourse with that property, 
committed no offense at all against Jewish or Bible mo¬ 
rality. All of this, however, is foreign to our subject. 
Since, as we now understand the matter, every common 
sexual act, committed outside of the marriage relation, 
constituted either fornication or adultery, and since both 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


411 


of these forms of immorality were equally forbidden, 
it makes no difference by which of these two terms the 
nature of an illicit sexual act may be designated. I will 
therefore proceed, at once, to show that the Bible effect¬ 
ually annuls all of its own teachings against the two 
offenses in question, by commanding men, or at least 
by aiding and encouraging them, to commit these very 
offenses. 

“And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a 
wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms. . . . 

So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; 
which conceived and bare him a son” (Hos. i, 2, 3). From 
the balance of the same chapter, we learn that this woman 
afterwards bore Hosea two other children. By this time, 
however, her charms seem to have become so much faded 
that she was no longer able to satisfy the carnal desires of 
her amorous paramour, the holy old Hosea, who lived with 
her all this time without any pretense of marriage. At 
any rate, he quarreled with her, called her by vile names, 
threatened to strip her naked in the street and to destroy 
all her property, and then drove her from his house. He 
also, in the most brutal manner, abused the children that 
she had borne to himself. He said to them: “ Plead with 
your mother, plead ; for she is not my wife, neither am I 
her husband. And I will not have mercy on her children, 
for they be the children of whoredoms ” (Hos. ii, 1-4). 

This brutish rake, however, this old he-whore—I mean 
this holy man of God—having, with Gomer, tasted to the 
fullest extent the indescribable joys of Yenus, very natur¬ 
ally became disconsolate when those joys were no longer 
within his reach. While in this unhappy condition, he 
seems to have cried unto the Lord for aid and comfort. 
At any rate, with the most refreshing simplicity, he says: 
“ Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman be¬ 
loved of her friend, yet an adulteress. . . . Sol bought 

her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of 
barley, and an half homer of barley : and I said unto her, 


412 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Thou shalt abide for many days; thou shalt not play the 
harlot, and thou shalt not be for another man, so will I 
also be for thee ” (Hos. iii, 1-3). When about to engage in 
illicit sexual intercourse, every holy man of our own time 
should learn, from Hosea’s prudent example, to pay the 
whore’s fees in advance, and thus secure her all to himself 
for “ many days.” Were this admirable prudence gener¬ 
ally practiced by our holy men, far fewer of them would 
be detected in their libidinous enjoyments, and, conse¬ 
quently, there would be far fewer church scandals than 
there now are. 

Here are two cases of the most open and shameless 
lewdness practiced by the express command of the God 
that you worship. And can these cases, by any possibility, 
be made to harmonize with those passages, above quoted, 
which prohibit both fornication and adultery? If they 
can be, if Hosea committed neither fornication nor adul¬ 
tery, then it is evident that the prohibitions against these 
offenses were so limited in their application as to become 
practically of no use at all. If, according to the Bible’s 
code of morals, there was nothing wrong in Hosea’s 
conduct, if, as I hold, the fact that, by hire or otherwise, 
he had, temporarily at least, a property right to the bodies 
of those two women, rendered his sexual intercourse with 
them perfectly right and proper, according to the code in 
question, then, so far from being what the champions of 
the Bible would have us believe that it is, the highest ever 
taught, that code is, undeniably, a monstrously low one, 
easily evaded, and totally unfit to be taught, or even read, 
by respectable people of the present time. 

If, however, on the other hand, these cases cannot be 
reconciled with the prohibitions in question—if Hosea 
did commit the sin of either fornication or adultery, then, 
by commanding him to commit this sin, God virtually 
annulled all the commands he had ever given against it. 
At any rate, Hosea so understood the matter. Before him 
he had all the prohibitions ever recorded against the com- 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


413 


mission of fornication and adultery. Notwithstanding this 
fact, however, when commanded to commit these acts, he 
proceeded at once to do so, thus showing that he regarded 
the command to commit them as a repeal or recalling of 
all the commands ever given against committing them. 

Thus we see that Hosea threw the entire great weight 
of his example in favor of committing fornication and 
adultery, as we now understand them, and against observ¬ 
ing the commands which prohibit them to be committed. 
And thus it is with nearly all the other noted characters 
of the Bible, who, by the champions of this book, are held 
up for our imitation as models of righteousness. With 
scarcely an exception, their examples were all on the side 
of the grossest immorality. This great preponderance of 
example in favor of immorality more than cancels all the 
good effects of the few valuable moral precepts of the 
Bible. As I have already said, therefore, and as I 
have promised to prove in a future lecture, the influence 
of the Bible as a whole is bound to be on the side of im¬ 
morality, and, consequently, to have a very pernicious 
effect upon all who make its teachings the guide of their 
conduct. This fact is made clear by the cases before us. 

Since, for the instruction of all who should ever read 
the Bible, God commanded Hosea, whom he gave to us as 
a model, to live in open lewdness with a common whore, 
no one can condemn whoredom without condemning God 
who thus taught us to practice it. Of necessity, Hosea’s 
conduct was either right or wrong. If we pronounce it 
wrong, then, of necessity, we must charge God with having 
commanded that which was wrong. In other words, we 
must charge him with having been a bad God, and, since 
he never changes, we must charge him with being a bad 
God yet, totally unfit to be selected as an object of 
worship, or to be trusted as a teacher of morality. Better 
have no God at all. 

If, on the other hand, we hold that Hosea’s conduct was 
perfectly right and proper, then, since the moral nature of 


414 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


an act is as unchangeable as God himself, we are bound to 
hold that common whoredom is still perfectly right and 
proper, especially when committed by priests and other 
holy men. In other words, we are bound either to honor 
whoredom, whether in the form of fornication or of adul¬ 
tery, or else dishonor a God who commanded it to be 
committed. And can teachings which involve such an 
alternative be otherwise than pernicious in their influence 
upon the moral natures of all who accept them? And 
now which horn of this dilemma will you choose? Will 
you hold that whoredom is a bad thing, and that, in com¬ 
manding it to be committed, God proved himself to be a 
bad God, or will you hold that it is a good thing, and that, 
in commanding it to be committed, he did nothing incon¬ 
sistent with the character of an infinitely good God? 

“ If brethren dwell together, and one of them die and 
have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry with¬ 
out unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in 
unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform 
the duty of a husband’s brother unto her. And it 
shall be, that the first-born which she beareth shall 
succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, 
that his name be not put out of Israel. And if the 
man like not to take his brother’s wife, then let his 
brother’s wife go up to the gate unto the elders, and say, 
My husband’s brother refusetli to raise up unto his brother 
a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my hus¬ 
band’s brother. Then the elders of his city shall call him, 
and speak unto him: and if he stand to it and say, I like 
not to take her, then shall his brother’s wife come unto 
him, in the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from 
off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, 
So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up 
his brother’s house. And his name shall be called in 
Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed ” 
(Deut. xxv, 5-10). 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


415 


And now, let me ask, is it not a great and blasphemous 
error to teach, as the Bible here does, that God—that the 
infinitely great and glorious power that sustains, in all 
their unspeakably sublime revolutions, the countless mill¬ 
ions of mighty worlds and systems of worlds that consti¬ 
tute the universe, ever so concentrated and limited itself as 
to be thus present, in either the form or the character of 
a person, at any one point on this one little world ? Is it 
not a great and blasphemous error to teach, as the Bible 
here does, that this infinitely great and glorious power 
ever assumed the use of articulate speech, and that it ever 
gave the extremely ridiculous and immoral laws above set 
forth ? Do you really believe that this infinitely great and 
glorious power ever thus ordered any man to leave his 
wife’s bed and to “go in unto ” liis widowed sister-in-law 
in order to get her with child in the name of his deceased 
brother ? Do you really believe that this great and glori¬ 
ous power ever ordered a widow to publicly pull off her 
brother-in-law’s shoes, to spit in his face, and to commit 
other shamefully unlady-like and immodest acts simply 
because that brother-in-law refused to “go in unto her?” 
And do you hold that this command is at all consistent 
with those commands which prohibit the commission of 
fornication, adultery, and other sexual abuses ? 

This business of going “in unto ” their sisters-in-law 
had to be transacted by married men the same as by bache¬ 
lors. It had to be transacted, too, outside of the marriage 
relation. Had the man who transacted it married the 
woman, her child would have been reckoned his own, and 
not the child of her deceased husband. At any rate, no 
marriage ceremony was ever observed on such occasions. 
For obvious reasons, too, the business in question had to 
be transacted very soon after the death of the woman’s 
husband, in order that the child resulting from the busi¬ 
ness might reasonably be reckoned his offspring. 

Being thus performed outside of the marriage relation, 
and, usually, by parties between whom no bond of affec- 


416 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tion existed, this act of going “in nnto her” was a pure 
matter of the lowest—of the most animal—form of lust, 
jDerformed, as it is among cattle, for the sole purpose of 
breeding. It necessarily constituted a form of prostitu¬ 
tion or whoredom, a form of either fornication or of 
adultery, and the command tc perform it was a virtual 
abolishment of all the laws that had ever been enacted 
against these offenses. Of necessity, this disgusting cus¬ 
tom—this brutish form of breeding—was either right and 
proper when God required it to be practiced, or wrong 
and improper. If it was right and proper at that time, 
then, since there can be no change in the moral nature of 
an act, it is bound to be equally right and proper at the 
present time. If, on the contrary, it was wrong and im¬ 
proper, then, of necessity, your God, in compelling men 
to practice it, was a bad God, and since, according to your 
own teachings, he is incapable of any change, he is bound 
to be, of equal necessity, an equally bad God still. I defy 
any escape from these conclusions. Which horn of this 
dilemma, then, 'will you take ? Will you contend that the 
form of whoredom in question was right and proper, and 
that it is so yet, or will you condemn your adopted God wdio 
compelled men to practice it ? Take whichever horn you 
may, the influence of the Bible, in regard to this matter, 
is undeniably on the side of that which is now almost 
universally regarded as a very degrading form of im¬ 
morality. 

Before leaving this part of my subject, I wish to ask of 
every married woman now present, what would you think 
of your God should he thus require your husband to leave 
your bed, and to “ go in unto ” his widowed sister-in-law? 
How would it be, especially if the widow in question were 
much younger and much more beautiful than yourself, and 
if—as would be very likely in the case of so charming a 
woman—his duty should require him to “ go in unto her” 
a great many times ? Could you be made to believe that 
your God, that the infinitely great and glorious power 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


417 


that rules the universe, is capable of requiring such a 
duty at the hands of your own husband ? If not, how 
can you so readily believe that he ever did require this 
duty at the hands of thousands of husbands who had 
wives just as good and as loving as you are? Were he to 
treat you in this way, could you love him, and would you 
serve him? If not, how can you profess to love and to 
serve him now, when you admit that he is guilty of thus 
treating thousands of other just as good women and as true 
wives? Would it not be just as right and proper for him 
to treat you in this way as it was or is for him to treat 
other women in the same way ? How much proof would 
your own husband have to adduce, in such a case, to fully 
satisfy you that he was rcting under God’s orders ? Did 
the Jewish wives have any such proof as you would re¬ 
quire ? If not, how did they know and how do you know 
that their husbands were acting under God’s orders? 
Had they—have you—any proof on the subject except the 
unsupported word of a single man, a notorious polygamist, 
the Brigham Young of the Hebrews? Could any such 
proof satisfy you if your own husband were involved in 
the case ? If not, how can it satisfy you in cases in which 
the husbands of other women are involved ? If the Bible 
had been written by virtuous wives instead of by licen¬ 
tious men, do you believe it would have been filled, as it 
is, with teachings so grossly immoral? 

“ But all the women-cliildren that have not known a man 
by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves ” (Num. xxxi, 
18). Further on, we learn that there were thirty-two 
thousand of these virgins divided out on that occasion to 
be outraged at pleasure by the licentious priests, citizens, 
and soldiers, who had just finished butchering, in cold 
blood, the mothers, the married sisters, and the infant 
brothers of these same virgins. Here, then, we again 
have a complete refutation of all that is said in the Bible 
of God’s disapprobation of fornication and adultery, as 
well as ot all that is said ol his mercy, his goodness, etc. 


418 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


In this case, too, as in all others, God’s peculiar people 
displayed a far greater readiness to obey those commands 
which enjoined the practice of immoral habits than they 
did to obey those which prohibited the practice of such 
habits. 

In Ex. xx, 15, we read : “ Thou shalt not steal.” So in 
1 Cor. vi, 10: “ Nor thieves . . . shall inherit the 

kingdom of God.” Many other passages also condemn 
stealing. All of these, however, none of which is sus¬ 
tained by example, are more than counterbalanced by the 
following, which is sustained by the example of the whole 
nation that constituted God’s peculiar people: “ And the 
children of Israel did according to the word of Moses : 
and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and 
jewels of gold, and raiment. And the Lord gave the 
people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they 
lent unto them such things as they required : and they 
spoiled the Egyptians” (Ex. xii, 35, 36). In preceding 
passages, we learn that God had instructed his peculiar 
people to borrow all the valuables they could of their 
kind and confiding Egyptian guests, friends, and neighbors; 
to professedly borrow them for only a few days, while 
attending a kind of camp-meeting or religious festival, and 
to then basely betray and rob the kind lenders by never 
returning the valuables thus treacherously obtained. We 
also learn that God had promised to aid his peculiar thiev¬ 
ing favorites in this nefarious enterprise by miraculously 
giving them undeserved favor in the sight of those that 
they were to thus treacherously despoil. From the pas¬ 
sage just quoted, we learn that this conspiracy, unparal¬ 
leled in its unspeakable meanness, was literally carried 
out against the Egyptians. 

You may claim, however, that this wdiolesale spoiling 
of their friends and neighbors, by the Hebrews, under the 
false pretense of merely borrowing articles of value, was 
not stealing. Perhaps it was not. But was it not a great 
deal worse than stealing? An ordinary thief obtains pos- 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


419 


session of another man’s money or property, without 
betraying that other man’s confidence or his friendship. 
In this case, on the contrary, the plunderers deliberately 
selected, as the victims of their hellish—I mean their 
Godly—conspiracy, their guests, their neighbors, their best 
friends generally, those who loved them most, and who 
placed the fullest confidence in their honor, and who, con¬ 
sequently, were most ready to lend them whatever they 
might desire. These spoilers, too, took a most horribly 
cruel advantage of their Egyptian friends, by calling upon 
them to borrow jewelry, raiment, etc., at a time when these 
friends were overcome with an unutterable terror, and 
when they were bewailing the loss of their poor innocent 
first-borns, murdered, in the most horrible manner, by 
God himself, only a few moments before. At such a time, 
these poor bereaved people would lend anything they had 
to their false friends, the treacherous Hebrews. It was 
by thus cruelly bereaving them, that God brought them to 
lend liberally to his thieving band of special favorites. 
This he facetiously called giving “ the people favor in the 
sight of the Egyptians.” And was not this deliberate be¬ 
trayal of confidence, this deliberate borrowing, from their 
best friends, of valuables, with full intent to abscond with 
them, a far meaner, a far more wicked act than is any 
form of ordinary stealing ? Does not this case, in which 
your adopted God himself is represented as a principal 
actor, more than cancel all the good influence of all those 
passages which prohibit such crimes ? Will anyone who 
believes this story ever try to be any better than it repre¬ 
sents God as being? If not, will not such a man’s moral 
nature be greatly dwarfed ? And is not the Bible, then, a 
pernicious book ? The command against stealing only for¬ 
bids one Jew to steal from another Jew. 

“So that they shall take no wood out of the field, 
neither cut down any out of the forests ; for they shall 
burn the weapons with fire : and they shall spoil those* 
that spoiled them, and rob those that robbed them, saitli 


420 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


the Lord God ” (Ezek. xxxix, 10). Here God is represented 
as instigating to robbery liis chosen j>edple, who, under 
such a leader, naturally enough became hated, by all the 
neighboring nations, as a nation of robbers. All the 
weaker nations they were wont to rob by force. The 
stronger nations, such as the Egyptians, they were wont, 
as we have seen to rob by treachery. From these they 
borrowed, and then never repaid the things borrowed. 
And all these things they did by the express command of 
the God whom you now worship, and who, being utterly 
unchangeable, must still delight in having his worshipers 
rob other people, and even one another. Does not the 
Bible err in giving God such a character ? 

In Prov. xii, 22, we read: “ Lying lips are an abomina¬ 
tion to the Lord : but they that deal truly are his delight.” 
So in Tit. i, 2: “In hope of eternal life, which God, that 
cannot lie, promised before the world began.” Also in 
Col. iii, 9: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put 
off the old man with his deeds.” These and many other 
passages clearly teach us that God is displeased with lying 
among men, and that he himself “ cannot lie.” By his 
recorded actions, however, which speak much louder than 
the empty words of these passages, it is clearly proved 
that he is not displeased with lying among men, and that 
he himself not only can lie, but, whenever it seems to be 
to his interest to do so, actually does lie. 

Every Bible reader who is not totally blinded b} T priest¬ 
craft, must have noticed that, although his peculiar people, 
from Abraham down, were notoriously addicted to lying, 
God seldom if ever reproved them for this vice : that, 
on the contrary, he often instructed them to lie, and re¬ 
warded them for their skill in the practice of this vice. 
Such a reader must have noticed, too, that God himself 
often invented the lies which he wished his peculiar lying 
people to tell, as well as those which he himself proposed 
to tell. 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


421 


In Gen. ii, 17, we read : “ In the day that thou eatest 
thereof thou shalt surely die.” When he spoke these 
words, God very well knew that Adam, to whom he spoke 
them, would not die on “ the day ” that he ate of the fruit 
in question. He very well knew that this primitive patri¬ 
arch would live right on for nearly a thousand years, and 
then die of old age, and not of disease brought on by the 
eating of that, or of any other, improper fruit. At any 
rate, the fact that Adam did thus live right on is proof 
positive that God’s words were false. 

God also spoke a falsehood when, to Hezekiah, he said: 
“Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die and not 
live ” (2 Kings xx, 1). This was said to Hezekiah, when 
he was “ sick unto death,” and when he inquired of the 
Lord how that sickness was to terminate. Hezekiah did 
not die, however, as the Lord said that he should; he 
recovered and lived fifteen more years. When he spoke 
the words in question, God very well knew that they were 
false. 

God also told a falsehood when, to the Ninevites, he 
said: “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown” 
(Jon. iii, 4). When he made this declaration, God very 
well knew that Nineveh would not be overthrown in forty 
days, or even in forty years. He spoke a wilful false¬ 
hood. 

A much worse case, however, than any of these, we find 
recorded in the fourteenth chapter of Numbers. From 
this account, we learn that God bound himself by a solemn 
oath to lead the Hebrews safely through from Egypt 
to the land of Canaan which he had promised to give them. 
We learn further, that, so far from fulfilling this his sworn 
promise, he led them out into the wilderness, where they 
were utterly helpless, and then cruelly and treacherously 
destroyed them. When making this promise, he very well 
knew that he would never fulfil it. It is evident, there¬ 
fore, that he meant to cruelly deceive the poor confiding 
people to whom he made it. He freely admits that, in 


422 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


committing this atrocious act, he was guilty of a deliber¬ 
ate “breach of promise.” Hear him! “Doubtless ye 
shall not come into the land concerning which I sware to 
make you dwell therein. . . . But . . . your carcasses, 
they shall fall in this wilderness . . . and ye shall know 
my breach of promise” (Num. xiv, 30-34). Upon con¬ 
duct so vile, no comment is necessary. If he actually did 
commit this atrocious act of deliberate perjury and cold¬ 
blooded murder, what kind of a being is the God that you 
worship ? If he did not commit it, what kind of a book is 
the Bible, in which you trust, and which thus blasphe¬ 
mously charges him with horrible crimes of which he is 
innocent? Are you trying to force upon us a monstrously 
bad God, or an equally bad Bible ? You are certainly try¬ 
ing to do the one or the other. 

Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micaiah, Paul, and several other 
high authorities of the Bible also represent God as a con¬ 
summate liar, a deliberate and cruel deceiver. Hear them! 
“Then said I, Ah Lord God, surely thou hast greatly 
deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have 
peace, whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul. O Lord, 
thou hast deceived me, and I teas deceived: thou art stronger 
than I, and [by deceiving me, thou] hast prevailed. Wilt 
thou be altogether unto me as a liar , and as waters that 
fail ? ” (Jer. iv, 10; xx, 7; and xv, 18). “And if the prophet 
be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the Lord have 
deceived that prophet” (Ezek. xiv, 9). “I saw the Lord 
sitting upon his throne, and all the host of heaven stand¬ 
ing on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, 
Who shall entice Aliab king of Israel, that he may go up 
and fall at Ramoth-gilead. And one spake saying after 
this manner, and another saying after that manner. Then 
there came out a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and 
said, I will entice him. And the Lord said unto him, 
Wherewith ? And he said, I will go out, and be a lying 
spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord 
said, Thou slialt entice him, and thou slialt also prevail: go 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


423 


out and do even so. [That is, go out and lie like the very 
devil.] Now therefore behold, the Lord hath put a lying 
spirit in the mouth of these thy prophets, and the Lord 
hath spoken evil against thee ” (2 Chron. xviii, 18-22). 

If the God that you worship actually did thus occasion¬ 
ally send out all the prophets of his chosen people with a 
lying spirit in their mouths, can we ever place any confi¬ 
dence in the truth of what those prophets teach ? May 
not all the prophets whose works are found in the Bible 
have had a lying spirit put in their mouths by this un¬ 
scrupulous and tricky Lord ? Can such a God ever be 
trusted? And can those who worship him, and who try 
to be like him—only not half so good—ever be trusted ? 
Can they be at all like him without being deliberate and 
consummate deceivers ? Will they ever try to be any better 
than is the God they worship ? Does not a lying God tend 
to make a lying people ? Do not the champions of the 
Bible, then, greatly err in holding up this lying God as 
the model after which we are to fashion our lives and our 
characters? Can the teaching of such a God have any 
other than a very demoralizing effect upon society in 
general, and upon the young in particular ? 

Besides all this, does not the fact that God had a pro¬ 
fessional liar in his service, around his throne in heaven, 
prove, beyond all dispute, that he needs liars there, that 
he looks upon them with favor, and that those Bible 
writers lie who say that “all liars shall have their part in 
the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone ? ” How 
fearfully demoralizing are such teachings ! No wonder we 
see so many Christians who seem to be trying to reach 
heaven upon the single merit of their wonderful skill in 
lying! 

“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusions 
that they should believe a lie: that they all might be 
damned ” (2 Thess. ii, 11, 12). This is the worst case of 
all. The God that you worship, and that you try so hard 
to be like, is here represented as deliberately and mali- 


424 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ciously preparing a lie and placing it before certain people, 
and as then sending them delusions so strong that they 
can not help believing it. He is represented as doing this, 
too, for the sole purpose of thus securing a pretext for 
damning those people. Does not this representation give 
him a character a thousand times worse than that which 
the Bible anywhere ascribes to the devil? Believing, as 
he doubtless did, that this was, indeed, the true character 
of the God that he worshiped, is it any winder that Paul 
himself, in his great zeal for the glory of this God, occa¬ 
sionally put in a well-told lie, and that he expressed 
astonishment and indignation when he was regarded as a 
sinner for so doing? In his wounded innocence, he does 
not pretend to deny having lied, but, in justification of his 
lying, exclaims: “For if the truth of God hath more 
abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also 
judged as a sinner?” (Bom. iii, 7). Sure enough! Why 
should he, for the telling of so godly a lie, have been 
“ judged as a sinner? ” Is it any wonder that, taking the 
Bible as they did for their guide, the fathers of the Church 
almost universally taught that lying for the glory of God, 
and for the building up of the Church, was a meritorious 
act, which should never be neglected, and which rendered 
the actor more precious in the sight of God, more fit for 
the unspeakable joys of heaven, and more certain of attain¬ 
ing them ? Is it any wonder that the word rascal, which 
was formerly used instead of the word apostle, and with 
the same meaning, finally came to signify a dishonest 
person? Is it any wonder that, for the same reason, the 
word priest is now fast coming to have this same idea of 
dishonesty involved in its meaning? Finally, is it any 
wonder that, so far as the rendering of the world any 
better is concerned, the Bible has proved an utter failure ? 

Besides all the cases that I have now noticed, and a 
thousand more similar cases that I might notice, all of 
which are extremely damaging to your God’s character for 
veracity and fair dealing, the Bible charges him with hav- 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


425 


ing rewarded the two midwives, Shiprah and Puah, for 
lying to Pliaraoli; with having rewarded the harlot, 
Bahab, for lying to the inhabitants of Jericho; with hav¬ 
ing specially blessed and rewarded Jacob for lying to his 
own father; with having approved and blessed the lying 
of Abraham and Isaac when, for money, they mendaciously 
put out their own Avives as their sisters to be the prosti¬ 
tute mistresses of other men; with liaAung sent Samuel on 
a certain errand, the anointing of David, Avith a base lie 
in his mouth—in short, it charges him Avith having exhib¬ 
ited, on a thousand occasions, a character infinitely worse 
than Avas ever exhibited by the Neros, the Caligulas, or 
any others of the Avorld’s most hideous human monsters. 

With this fearful record before us, we perceive that all 
those passages in the Bible which represent your adopted 
God—the ancient tutelary divinity of the HebreAvs alone— 
as a good, truthful, and loving being, are simply the empty 
words of abject flatterers, who, had it been more to their 
interest to do so, would have heaped similar fulsome flat¬ 
teries upon the devil himself. Such flatterers have ahvays 
swarmed around the Neros, the Caligulas, the Molechs, 
the Juggernauts, and all the other hideous monsters, both 
human and deific, that the world has ever produced. Do 
not, therefore, I beg of you, O Christian !—do not longer 
commit the ruinous mistake of putting the Bible into the 
hands of your children, and of holding up to them as a 
model—as an object of adoration—this mythical monster 
of the ancient Hebrews. With your eyes now open to the 
utter falsity of such charges, you cannot, without Avilful 
blasphemy, continue to charge such acts as I have de¬ 
scribed, against the infinitely great and glorious poAver 
that rules the universe—against the only true God that 
ever existed. 


426 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


LECTURE THIRTEENTH. 

ERRORS OF THE BIBLE.—(CONCLUDED.) 

In this lecture, as in the last, I shall point out passages 
in the Bible which are known to be errors because they 
are directly contradicted by, or are utterly inconsistent 
with, other passages; because they are totally at variance 
with certain well-known truths of science, or because their 
inevitable tendency is to promote immorality, indecency, 
or criminality among men. 

“And the Lord appeared unto him [Abraham] in the 
plains of Mamre : and he sat in the tent door in the heat 
of the day; and he lifted up his eyes and looked, and lo, 
three men stood by him: and when he saw them , he ran to 
meet them from the tent door, and he bowed himself to¬ 
ward the ground, and said, My Lord , if now I have found 
favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee , from thy 
servant: let a little water, I pray you, be fetched, and wash 
your feet, and rest yourselves under the tree ” (Gen. xviii, 
1 - 4 ). 

Of necessity, “ the Lord,” here mentioned, must have 
been either a single individual, or else a corporation or 
congress composed of two or more individuals. He could 
not possibly have existed in both of these two forms at 
once. The Bible, therefore, undeniably errs either when 
it represents him, as at some times it does, as a single indi¬ 
vidual, or else when it represents him, as at other times it 
does, as a corporation or congress composed of at least 
three distinct individuals. 

The Hebrew Elohim, which is here translated Lord, is 
a noun in the plural number. Of itself, this fact proves 
that the Lord in question was a corporation or congress , 
composed of several persons , and not a single individual. 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 427 

In the passages which I have just quoted, the Elohim, or 
Lord, is certainly represented thus as a corporation or 
congress composed of at least three individuals. When 
addressing these individuals in their united or corporate 
capacity, Abraham very properly applies to the single 
body which they compose the singular terms, “my Lord” 
“ thy” “ thee” etc. When addressing them, however, in 
their separate or individual capacities, he with equal pro¬ 
priety, applies to them the plural terms, “ you” your” and 
“ yourselves .” Stopping, passing away, etc., were acts 
which, as a single body, the whole company could perform. 
When speaking of these acts, therefore, Abraham ad¬ 
dresses the whole company as a single body, and, as a 
matter of course, uses the singular terms which I have 
noticed. When speaking of washing their feet, resting 
themselves, etc., however, acts which could not be per¬ 
formed by the whole company as a single body, he 
addresses them individually, and, as a matter of course^ 
uses the plural terms to which I have called your atten¬ 
tion. As a single body, the company had no feet, 
Consequently, it could not wash its feet. The same is 
equally true of its muscles, its stomach, etc. As a single 
body, the company had none of these things, and hence 
could not, as such, rest, eat, etc. The feet, the muscles, 
the stomachs, all the physical organs, of necessity, belonged 
individually to the various persons that composed the 
company. In speaking of any of the functions of any 
of these organs, therefore, Abraham had, of course, to 
speak of them, just as he did, as acts pertaining to in¬ 
dividuals, and not as acts pertaining to the company as a 
whole. 

This same idea of plurality, in the term Elohim, or Lord, 
is also clearly conveyed in the following passages : “ And 
they [the Lord or whole company of three persons spoken 
of in their individual capacities] feaid unto him, Where is 
Sarah thy wife? And he [Abraham] said, Behold, in the 
tent And he [the Lord or whole company spoken ot in 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


428 

their corporate capacity] said, I will certainly return unto 
thee according to the time of life ; and lo ! Sarah thy wife 
shall bear a son” (Gen. xviii, 9,10). “And God said, Let 
us make man in our image, after our likeness. And the 
Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us , 
to know good and evil ” (Gen. i, 26; iii, 22). “ For there 

are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word 
[or Son], and the Holy Ghost ” (1 John v, 7). 

All these passages, however, which thus so clearly 
teach that the Lord was a corporation or congress com¬ 
posed of several individuals, are totally at variance with 
the following passages, which just as clearly teach that he 
was only a single individual. “ And the men [the whole 
three of whom I have already spoken] rose up from thence, 
and looked toward Sodom : and Abraham went with them 
to bring them on the way. . . . And the men [only 

two of them, as we learn further on] turned their faces 
from thence, and went toward Sodom : but Abraham stood 
yet before the Lord ” (who now consisted of only the one 
remaining man) (Gen. xviii, 16, 22). “ And Jacob was left 

alone ; and there wrestled a man with him until the break¬ 
ing of the day. . . . And Jacob called the name of 

the place Peniel: for I have seen God [the man with whom 
he had just been wresting face to face], and my life is pre¬ 
served ” (Gen. xxxii, 24, 30). “ The Lord is a man of war ” 

(Ex. xv, 3). 

That the one set or the other of these passages, if not 
both sets, are erroneous in their teachings, is so clear 
that no further comment upon the subject is necessary. 
Indeed, in addition to the very damaging fact that they 
plainly contradict one another’s teachings in regard to the 
singular or the plural form of God, these passages are all 
proved to be erroneous by the fact that, together with 
their contexts, they all teach things monstrously ab¬ 
surd, horribly blasphemous, and utterly impossible, by 
the fact that they all represent this infinitely great and 
glorious power or force that rules the universe as so con- 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE.. 


429 


tracting itself that it occupied less than half a dozen cubic 
feet of space here on earth; by the fact that they all 
represent this infinitely great and glorious power, this 
eternal force which, as an essential property of matter, 
must, of necessity, be present wherever matter itself 
exists, as assuming the form and the character of a man , or 
the forms and the characters of several different men , as 
traveling about the country on foot like a common tramp, 
as growing weary and hungry, as having dirty feet, as 
washing its feet, resting itself in the shade of a tree, and 
dining heartily upon milk, bread, and veal; as being so 
ignorant that it did not know the habits of the people of a 
city in its immediate neighborhood, as being beaten in an 
argument by Abraham, and in a wrestling match by Jacob, 
as going about the country making ninety-year-old women 
breed, etc. 

“ Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that 
they have, and spare them not, but slay both man and 
woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass. 
. . . And he [Saul] took Agag the king of the Amalek- 

ites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the 
edge of the sword ” (1 Sam. xv, 3, 8). From these pas¬ 
sages, which blasphemously make a monstrous murderer 
of God, of the infinitely great and glorious power that 
rules the universe, we learn that Saul slew all of the 
Amalekites , except Agag their king, who, as we learn fur¬ 
ther on, was soon afterward murdered in cold blood by 
God’s holy prophet, the famous Samuel. If, therefore, 
this account be true, the Amalekites were, on this occa¬ 
sion, entirely exterminated. From 1 Sam. xxvii, 8-11, 
however, we learn that only a few years later, and during 
the very same reign “ David and his men went up and 
invaded the Amalekites. And David smote the land, and left 
neither man nor woman alive, and took away the sheep, and 
the oxen and the asses, and the camels, and the apparel, 
and returned, and came to Achish. And David saved 
neither man nor woman alive, to bring tidings to Gath, 


430 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


saying, Lest they tell on ns.” The murderer’s motto,. 
“ Dead men tell no tales,” was probably learned from this^ 
prince of murderers, this man so pre-eminently after God’s 
own heart. Did David thus invade, plunder, and murder 
the dead, the people that Saul had “ utterly destroyed ” 
only a few years before ? 

It seems that when pursued by Saul, who for very good 
reasons wished to slay him, David took refuge with the 
king of Gath, who received him with truly royal hospi¬ 
tality, and gave him a whole city for the accommodation 
of himself and his men. In return for this magnificent 
hospitality, of which he stood so greatly in need, it seems 
that David, with God’s full approbation, occupied a por¬ 
tion of his time in plundering his benefactor’s people, the 
Amalekites and others. It seems also that, still with 
God’s full approbation, he was accustomed to murder, in 
cold blood, every man, woman, and child of those that he 
plundered, in order to prevent them from reporting his 
monstrous treachery to his kind benefactor. Thus, for 
the second time, were the Amalekites utterly exterminated. 
They do not seem, however, to have staid dead after this 
second killing any better than they did after the first. 
They w T ere up again, it seems, and fighting only a few 
months afterwards. “And it came to pass, when David 
and his men were come to Ziklag on the third day, that the 
Amalekites had invaded the south, and Ziklag, and burned 
it with fire ” (1 Sam. xxx, 1). The “ third day ” here men¬ 
tioned was the third day after David’s departure from 
Gath, where, at the very farthest, he remained only a few 
months. These twice “ utterly destroyed Amalekites,” 
therefore, must have been a very enterprising people to thus 
invade “ the south and Ziklag ” so soon after their second 
utter destruction, What think my opponents? 

Instead of killing all of David’s women and children, 
as he had killed all of theirs, to prevent them from giving 
information, these much-injured heathens—these twice 
“utterly destroyed” Amalekites—simply carried those 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


431 


women and children away as captives. In doing this, 
they exhibited a degree of mercy and forbearance never 
exhibited by the worshipers of the Bible’s bloody God. 
Taking David’s women and children as captives was cer¬ 
tainly a very moderate retaliation for the wholesale and 
treacherous butchering by him of all their own women and 
children. 

When they returned from their own marauding expe¬ 
dition against their neighbors, and found their own city 
burnt and their own families carried away, “ David and 
the people that were with him lifted up their voice and 
wept, until they had no more power to weep ” (1 Sam. xxx, 
4). How wonderfully tender-hearted these cold-blooded 
butchers of women and children—these special favorites 
of your own bloody God—became whenever any misfortune 
fell upon themselves! After bellowing thus, like so many 
hungry calves, “until they had no power to” bellow, 
David and his men very naturally and very wisely went ip 
pursuit of the captors of their women and children, those 
twice “utterly destroyed” Amalekites. “And David 
smote them from the twilight even until the evening of 
the next day: and there escaped not a man of them, save 
four hundred young men, which rode upon camels, and 
fled ” (1 Sam. xxx, 17). Whether the “ four hundred 
young men ” who wisely “ fled,” on this occasion, were, or 
were not, all the Amalekites that escaped this third kill¬ 
ing, I do not pretend to know. From 2 Sam. viii, 11, 12, 
however, we learn that, only a few years later, they were 
sufficiently numerous to be regarded as a nation, and that 
they were again subdued and plundered by that enterpris¬ 
ing and unscrupulous robber, King David. From 1 Chron. 
iv, 42, 43, we further learn that these much-destroyed 
people were finally all destroyed by the sons of Simeon. 
“And some of them, even of the sons of Simeon, five 
hundred men, went to Mount Seir. . . . And they smote 
the rest of the Amaleldtes that were escaped, and dwelt 
there unto this day.” And yet these irrepressible Amal- 


432 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ekites seem to have survived even this final utter destruc¬ 
tion, since, according to his own account, the great histo¬ 
rian, Josephus, was one of their descendants. 

Since it is utterly impossible for every man, woman, 
and child of an entire people to be slain on each of three 
or four different occasions, we know that some, if not all, 
of these several accounts of the total destruction of the 
Amalekites, at different times, are bound to be false. 
Indeed, even if this extremely grave objection could be 
explained away, we would still know that they were all false 
from the fact that, with their contexts, they all represent 
God as ordering, or at least approving, the indiscriminate 
and cold-blooded butchery of men, women, and children, 
for a pretended offense committed four hundred years 
before they were born, or simply for the purpose of pre¬ 
venting them from giving information against their 
butchers. God is simply another name for the infinite 
force that eternally inheres in matter, and that sustains 
the universe; and we know that this force—this essential 
property of matter—never either ordered or approved any 
such butcheries. 

When David numbered the people of Israel and of 
Judah, how many men did he find capable of bearing 
arms ? To this question, we have two utterly irreconcil¬ 
able answers. 2 Sam. xxiv, 9, says that “ there were in 
Israel eight hundred thousand valiant men that drew the 
sword; and [that] the men of Judah were five hundred 
thousand men.” 1 Cliron. xxi, 5, says that “all they of 
Israel were a thousand thousand and an hundred thousand 
men that drew sword: and [that] Judah was four hundred 
threescore and ten thousand men that drew sword.” Be¬ 
tween these two answers, there is an utterly irreconcilable 
discrepancy of three hundred thousand men in the num¬ 
ber returned for Israel, and one of thirty thousand in the 
number returned for Judah. One or the other of these 
answers, therefore, is bound to be false. Will the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible please tell us which one is correct ? 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


433 


Will they also please inform us how it happened that, 
according to each of these irreconcilable accounts, Israel 
had an exact number of hundreds of thousands, and that 
Judah had an exact number of tens of thousands? Will 
they please inform us further what there was in this num¬ 
bering of the people, so wicked that it should have caused 
all the forces which, as essential properties, inhere in 
matter, and which, when all taken together, are, by per¬ 
sonification, called God, to become so incensed against 
David that they mercilessly murdered seventy thousand 
innocent persons who had never had anything to do in the 
matter ? 

The errors in regard to this matter, however, do not 
end here. In 2 Sam. xxiv, 24, we learn that David bought 
a threshing-floor of Araunah for fifty shekels of silver. In 
1 Chron. xxi, 25, however, we learn that this statement is 
false in every particular; that David bought the thresh¬ 
ing-floor of Oman for six hundred shekels of gold. Will the 
champions of the Bible please inform us which one of 
these tw T o utterly irreconcilable accounts we must believe 
in order to escape eternal damnation? Will they also 
please inform us whether, in order to escape this damna¬ 
tion—whatever it may be—we are bound to believe 2 Sam. 
xxiv, 13, which says that, on this occasion, God offered 
David seven years of famine, or 1 Chron. xxi, 12, which 
says that only three years were thus offered ? 

“And David took from him [Hadadezer] . . . seven 
hundred horsemen” (2 Sam. viii, 4). “And David took 
from him [Hadadezer] . . . seven thousand horsemen” 
(1 Chron. xviii, 4). In order to be saved—whatever that 
means—how many horsemen must we believe that David 
took on this occasion? And how many members must we 
believe there were in Jacob’s family at the time of his 
going down into Egypt? Gen. xlvi, 27, says: “. . . All 
the souls of the house of Jacob which came into Egypt, 
were three score and ten.” Acts vii, 14, says: “Then sent 
Joseph, and called his father Jacob to him, and all his 


434 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


kindred, three score and fifteen souls.” So of the stalls 
which Solomon had for his horses. How many must we 
believe there were of them? “And Solomon had forty 
thousand stalls of horses for his chariots” (1 Kings iv, 26). 
“And Solomon had four thousand stalls for his horses and 
chariots” (2 Chron. ix, 25). How many did he really have? 
Dare any champion of the Bible attempt to answer this 
question ? 

Besides all these things, shall those who seek God 
early find him? “Those that seek me early shall find me” 
(Prov. viii, 17). “They shall seek me early, but they shall 
not find me ” (Prov. i, 28). Can both of these answers be 
true ? If not, which one of them is true ? And if we fail 
to believe the one that is false, will we be eternally damned 
as infidels? Must we believe a lie simply because we 
chance to find it in the Bible ? And how shall we act 
toward other men? “And as ye would that men should do 
to you , do ye also to them likewise ” (Luke vi, 31). “Thus 
saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his sword by 
his side, and go in out from gate to gate throughout the 
camp, and slay every man his brother , and every man his 
companion , and every man his neighbor ” (Ex. xxxii, 27). In 
thus treacherously slaying his brothers, his companions, 
and his neighbors, who had never done him any injury, 
would any man be doing unto them as he would have them 
do unto him? If God should give you both of these 
commands at once, could you, and would you, obey them 
both? 

And how must we feel toward our wives, our brothers, 
and our other relatives? “Husbands, love^jowc wives” 
(Eph. v, 25). “Behold, how good and how pleasant it is 
for brethren to dwell together in unity ” (Ps. cxxxiii, 1). 
“He that loveth his brother abideth in the light , and there 
is none occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth 
his brother is in darkness ” (1 John ii, 10, 11). “Whoso¬ 
ever hateth his brother, is a murderer: and ye know that 
no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him ” (1 John iii, 15). 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


435 


From these passages, we learn that we must love our wives, 
our brothers, and our other relatives, and that, if we hate 
them, we can never attain eternal life. From the follow¬ 
ing passages, however, we learn that we must hate them, 
and that, if we love them, we can never attain eternal life. 
“ If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, 
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters , ... he 
cannot be my disciple ” (Luke xiv, 26). “For I am come to 
set a man at variance with his father, and the daughter 
against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her 
mother-in-law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own 
household ” (Matt, x, 35, 36). From one of these sets of 
passages* we learn that if we do hate our relatives, we will 
go to hell. From the other set, we learn that, if we do not 
hate them, we will go to hell. In any view of the case, 
therefore, we are bound to have a hell-of-a-time. 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only 
begotten Son [Jesus], that whosoever believeth on him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God 
sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but 
that the world through him might be saved” (John iii, 
16, 17). From this passage, we learn that it was God who 
gave Jesus for the salvation of men, and that the gift was 
for the benefit of the whole world. From the following 
passage, however, we learn that this is all false, that it 
was not God who gave Jesus, but Jesus himself who gave 
himself for the salvation of men, and that the gift was not 
for the benefit of the whole world, but for that of the church 
alone. “ Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also 
loved the Church, and gave himself for it ” (Eph. v, 25). 
And now, will the champions of the Bible please inform 
us by whom, and for whom, Jesus actually was given? 
Dare they even try to do this ? 

Besides all of these things, how shall we feel toward 
our neighbors, and how shall we treat them? “Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ” (Lev. xix, 18). “Thou 
shalt not defraud thy neighbor, neither rob him ” (Lev. xix. 


436 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


13). “ Devise not evil against thy neighbor ” (Prov. iii, 

29). “Speak ye every man the truth to his neighbor ” 
(Zech. viii, 15). “ Let every one of us please his neighbor ” 

(Rom. xv, 2). From these passages, we learn that we 
must love our neighbors; that we must deal with them 
truthfully, honestly, and kindly; and that we must avoid 
everything that could, in any way, either injure or offend 
them. From the following passages, however, we learn 
that we are to do none of these things; that, on the con¬ 
trary, we are to deceive our neighbors, to rob them, to 
slay them, and in every other possible way to injure and 
displease them. “ But every woman [the women were 
more likely to be trusted with such things than were the 
men] shall borrow of her neighbor , . . . jewels of silver, 
and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them 
upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and [by basely 
absconding with these borrowed goods thus treacherously 
obtained] ye shall spoil the Egyptians ” (Ex. iii, 22). “ I 

set all men every one against his neighbor ” (Zech. viii, 10). 
“Put every man his sword by his side, . . * and slay 
every man his neighbor ” (Ex. xxxii, 27). 

“Thou shalt not hill ” (Ex. xx, 13). “And he that 
Icilleth any man shall surely be put to death ” (Lev. xxiv, 
17). Murderers shall have their part in the lake [if there 
be any such lake] which burnetii with fire and brimstone ” 
(Rev. xxi, 8). From these passages we learn that we must 
not kill; that if we do kill, we “shall surely be put to 
deathand that, as murderers, we shall have our “ part 
in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone.” From 
the following passages, on the contrary, we learn that we 
must kill; that God’s blessing depends upon our killing 
our sons, our brothers, our companions, and our neigh¬ 
bors ; and that a failure to kill is an offense sufficient to 
excite God’s inappeasable wrath. “ Thus saitli the Lord 
of hosts, . . . Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly 
destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay 
both man and woman , infant , and suckling , ox and sheep, 



ERRORS OP THE BIBLE. 


437 


camel and ass.” Tliis command was given to Saul, who, 
as we learn further on, in obedience to the command, 
“utterly destroyed all the people [of Amalek] with the 
edge of the sword.” Saul, however, did spare and take as 
a captive one person, Agag, and, for this act o‘f humanity, 
God w T as so angry with him that he rent from him his 
kingdom, and had him, his three brave and noble-minded 
sons, and many thousands of innocent persons slaugh¬ 
tered. (See the entire fifteenth and thirty-first chapters of 
1 Samuel and the thirteenth verse of the tenth chapter of 
1 Chronicles.) Horribly cruel as this wholesale and un¬ 
provoked slaughter, in cold blood, of all the untold thou¬ 
sands of inoffensive and defenseless men, women, and 
children of an entire nation, proves him to have been, Saul 
was, nevertheless, possessed of too much humanity to be 
“ a man after God’s own heart,” or to be permitted to reign 
long as king of God’s peculiar people. Only a human 
monster, only a fiend of blood and treachery, like David, 
could be “ a man after God’s own heart,” or could, satis¬ 
factorily, reign as king of God’s peculiar people—only a 
man who, like David, u saved neither man nor wcman 
alive,” of those against whom he made his marauding 
expeditions; only a man who, like David, to render the 
fate of his victims more terrible, had them, men, women, and 
children, tortured to death, by dragging harrows over their 
prostrate bodies, by lacerating their quivering flesh with 
saws, by lopping off their limbs with axes, and by suffo¬ 
cating them in the heated flues of brick-kilns; only a man 
who, like David, would sometimes amuse himself, and 
gratify his worse than hellish cruelty, by houghing, and 
otherwise maiming, thousands at a time of poor, harmless, 
captured horses. To please God, we must kill. 

“ If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or 
thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, 
which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, 
Let us go and serve other gods, . . . thou shalt surely 
kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to 


438 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


death ” (Deut. xiii, 6-9). What could be a more horrible 
form of murder than would be the butchering thus, in cold 
blood, of those who love us most dearly, simply because, 
for what they believed to be for our own good, they had 
tried to get us to join them in what they believed to be 
the true religion—in the worship of Jesus, or some other 
god, like him, unknown to the Jews ? To please God, we 
must kill. 

“And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host 
[because, they had saved the women and the children of 
the Midianites alive]. . . . And Moses said unto them, 
Have ye saved all the women alive? Now therefore kill 
every male among the little ones, and kill every woman 
that hath known man by lying with him. But all the 
women-children, that have not known a man by lying with 
him, keep alive for yourselves ” (Num. xxxi, 14-18). I do 
not know which was the more atrocious, the cold-blooded 
butchery of all the male infants, and of all the married 
women, or the shocking purposes of outrage and ravish¬ 
ment for which the virgins were saved alive. To please 
God, we must kill. 

“ Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, Put every man his 
sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate 
throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother , and 
every man his companion , and every man his neighbor. For 
Moses had said, Consecrate yourselves to-day to the Lord, 
even every man upon his son [by foully murdering him], 
and upon his brother , that he may bestow upon you a bless¬ 
ing this day ” (Ex. xxxii, 27, 29). In order to please God 
and to gain his blessing, we must kill—kill our sons , our 
brothers , our companions, and our neighbors. A strange way, 
truly, to gain God’s blessing! 

“ And [Jesus] came and preached peace to you which 
were far off, and to them that were nigh ” (Eph. ii, 17.) 
4t Think not that I am come to send peace on earth ; I came 
not to send peace, but a siuord ” (Matt, x, 34). After read¬ 
ing both of these passages, will the champions of the 



ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 439 

Bible please inform us whether Jesus did, or did not, 
come to preach or send peace on earth ? 

“Three years reigned he [Abijah] in Jerusalem. And 
his mother’s name was Maachah, the daughter of Abislia- 
lom ” (1 Kings xv, 2. “ And after her he [Abijah’s father] 

took Maachah, the daughter of Absalom , which bare him 
Abijah ” (2 Chron. xi, 20). “ He [Abijah] reigned three 

years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name also was Michaiah 
[was it ?] the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah ” (2 Chron. xiii, 
2). From these passages we learn that Abijah’s mother 
was the daughter of three different men, Abishalom, Ab¬ 
salom, and Uriel. Did these men all beget her at once, or 
did they work by turns ? Will the champions of the Bible 
please answer ? 

“And Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary ” (Matt, 
i, 16). “And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years 
of age, being [as was supposed] the son of Joseph , which 
was the son of Heli ” (Luke iii, 23). From these passages, 
we learn that Joseph was the son of two different fathers, 
Jacob and Heli. How much of him did each one of them 
beget? And, in begetting him, did they both work at 
once, or only one at a time ? Who can tell ? Some theo¬ 
logians attempt to escape the difficulty involved in this 
matter by assuming that Heli, being from some cause unable 
to beget himself a son, nevertheless managed to become 
a happy father, by having his friend Jacob do the beget¬ 
ting for him. This is, indeed, a beautiful explanation. 
Why cannot men, in the true spirit of brotherly love, thus 
aid one another at the present time? Would any of my 
opponents be unwilling to render such aid to a needy 
brother ? 

“Two and twenty years old was Ahaziali when he began 
to reign; and he reigned one year in Jerusalem ” (2 Kings 
viii 26). “ Forty and two years old was Ahaziah when he 

began to reign, and he reigned one year in Jerusalem ” 
{2 Chron. xxii, 2). Can both of these contradictory pas¬ 
sages }:>ossibly be true ? From the context, we learn that 


440 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Ahaziah succeeded to the throne immediately after the 1 
death of his father, who, at the time of his decease, was 
only forty years of age. The former of these two pas¬ 
sages, therefore, makes Ahaziah, who was the youngest of 
several sons, only eighteen years younger than his own 
father. The latter makes him two years older than his 
own father. The former states something that is not 
very reasonable ; the latter, something that is clearly im¬ 
possible. And must we, indeed, believe both of these 
utterly irreconcilable passages, or roast forever in the 
flames of hell? If not, which one may we reject? 

In the fourth chapter of Judges, we have an account 
of a terrible battle between the Hebrews and the Canaan- 
ites. The latter people being utterly overthrown, their 
commander, Sisera, all alone, fled toward the tent of 
Heber, a friend of his, who belonged to a neutral tribe. 
As he approached this tent, the wife of his friend came 
out to meet him, entreated him to come into the tent, and 
assured him that while he was under her protection he 
had nothing to fear. Accepting what he believed to be the 
true hospitality of a real friend, he did enter the tent, 
and being very weary, soon fell asleep. Then he was 
foully murdered by this treacherous female fiend, Jael, the 
wdfe of his friend. The twenty-first verse says: “ Then 
Jael Heber’s wife took a nail of the tent, and took a ham¬ 
mer in her hand, and went softly unto him, and smote the 
nail into his temples and fastened it unto the ground, for 
he was fast asleep and weary. So he died.” And this 
was the way to please God. 

When considered in connection with all its circum¬ 
stances of monstrous treachery, violated hospitality, and 
cold-blooded deliberation, this murder, in the hideousness 
of its atrocity, stands without a parallel in the whole 
world’s annals of crime. Had the Hebrews been beaten, 
and had their leader, in like manner, sought refuge in her 
tent, this foul monstrosity in the form of a woman would, 
in the same way, have murdered him, in order to win 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


441 


favor with his victorious enemies. What she did was 
done from the very lowest and most selfish of motives, 
and not from any love for God or for his pocple. And yet 
the Bible, which, as you contend, contains nothing but 
truth, represents the God that you worship, the God that 
you strive to be like, as being wonderfully pleased with 
the unspeakably foul murder, committed on this occasion, 
by this hideous female monstrosity. Through his prophet¬ 
ess, Deborah, he is represented as saying: “ Blessed above 
women shall Jael the wife of Heber the Kenite be, blessed 
shall she be above women in the tent ” (Jud. v, 24). 

The Bible is certainly guilty of a fearful error in thus 
holding up, for our admiration and imitation, and as a sure 
means of gaining God’s approbation and his richest bless¬ 
ings, this most foul of all acts of treachery, this most 
monstrous of all cold-blooded murders. Unfortunately, 
this story, unlike many of the other immoral and crime- 
encouraging stories of the Bible, stands uncontradicted by 
any other passages. There is not, in the whole Bible, a 
single word that goes to prove that this shocking story is 
not true, or that your God is not, as it represents him to 
be, a hideous murder-approving monster. It is no wonder, 
therefore, that the believers in the religion of the Bible 
have always been noted for their treachery and their thirst 
for blood. It is no wonder that they have always regarded 
the killing of infidels, heretics, and heathens, by means 
the most foul, by tortures the most terrible, as one of the 
most acceptable methods of doing God service. A book 
containing teachings so derogatory to the character of 
God, so destructive to all that is noble in the nature of 
man, cannot possibly have any other than a very per¬ 
nicious influence upon the moral characters of all who 
read it and believe it. 

“And the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and he 
went down to Ashkelon, and slew thirty men of them, and 
took their spoil, and gave change of garments unto them 
which expounded the riddle ” (Jud. xiv, 19). From this 


442 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


passage, we learn that “the Spirit of the Lord ” is simply 
the spirit of murder; and we are led to ask whether all 
murders are, or are not, committed under the influence of 
this same spirit. Samson, it seems, of whom this language 
is spoken, and who was a notoriously “fast” young man, 
had laid a wager, with certain other sporting characters of 
his own class, that they could not guess a certain riddle 
which he propounded. He very imprudently told his 
riddle to a certain lewd woman of whom he was enamored, 
and she, as might have been expected, treacherously told 
it to the other sporting characters with whom he had laid 
the wager. In this way, Samson lost the wager, which 
was thirty changes of garments, and which he did not have 
the means to pay. In order, therefore, to help him out of 
his difficulty, your God, who seems, formerly, to have been 
himself something of a sporting character, inspired Sam¬ 
son to murder thirty innocent and unsuspecting persons, 
and, from their dead bodies, to strip off the necessary 
number of garments with which to pay his extremely fool¬ 
ish, if not monstrously wicked, wager. 

At another time, “ the Spirit of the Lord ” came upon 
him, and inspired him to butcher, at a single job, and with 
no weapon except the jaw-bone of an ass, a thousand well- 
armed men. At still another time, this same “ Spirit of 
the Lord,” this same spirit of murder, came upon him, and 
inspired him to kill three thousand persons—men, women, 
and children—by overturning upon them, with his naked 
hands, one of the largest buildings ever erected. 

No possible good either could, or did, result to the 
world, from these wholesale and monstrous murders. 
Besides this, except when the “ Spirit of God ” was upon 
him impelling him to revel in the life-blood of his fellow- 
men, Samson was a very sensual man, lying around much 
of the time, in the most open and shameless manner, with 
notoriously lewd women. And yet, by the Bible and its 
champions, this infamous debauchee and cut-throat is 
held up for our admiration and imitation as a model of 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


443 


excellence—as one of God’s special favorites—as a man 
who, from before his conception, had been an object 
of God’s special care, angels and miracles having, in 
advance, announced his conception and his birth of a 
hitherto barren woman, and also his wonderful character. 

Here, then, in representing as peculiarly pleasing to 
God, the character and the conduct of this unspeakably 
foul crime-hardened and blood-blackened monster, the 
Bible again commits an error fearfully destructive to the 
moral sense of those who believe the story. Such persons 
will naturally incline to admire, and, as far as possible, to 
imitate the life and the character of this God-favored hero. 
How can teachings so monstrous in their immorality, and 
so horrible in their blasphemy, have any other than an 
extremely pernicious influence upon the moral natures of 
the people? It were well if this monstrous story were 
contradicted in some other part of the Bible. Unfortu¬ 
nately, however, while all the good stories and other good 
teachings of the Bible are rendered null and void by being 
thus contradicted, the extremely bad stories, like this 
and the one about Heber’s wife, the monstrously immoral 
teachings all remain unweakened by any such contradic¬ 
tions. 

Since there is no change in God, it is evident that he 
must, of necessity, still take delight in the same things 
that so greatly pleased him in the time of Samson. It is 
also evident that, of equal necessity, the inevitable effect 
of the coming of his “Spirit ” upon men must be the same 
now that it was then. It is evident that, when this 
“Spirit” comes upon men now, it is bound to impel them, 
as it impelled Samson, to revel in the blood of murder. 
Guiteau had a correct view of this God’s character. I defy 
any escape from these conclusions. But do you really 
believe that the infinite power that eternally inheres in 
matter—the infinite power that rules the universe—the 
infinite power that you call God, and that you worship, 


444 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED: 


ever does, or ever did, thus impel men, irresistibly, to the 
commission of the most horrible of murders ? 

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live ” (Ex. xxii, 18). 
This law or commandment involves the very climax of 
blasphemy. It represents God as an ignorant and super¬ 
stitious fellow who believes in witchcraft, and who fears 
witches. It is also monstrously mischievous in its influence 
upon the people. It keeps alive, among them, an ex¬ 
tremely degrading superstition, and has already caused 
the death, by the most terrible of all known tortures, of 
hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women, and chil¬ 
dren. It has brought fear, darkness, and despair to untold 
thousands of homes that, but for its baleful influence, 
would have been the abodes of light, of hope, and of glad¬ 
ness. How can the champions of the Bible continue to 
defend so monstrous an error? 

In the fifth chapter of Numbers, we find a law, said ta 
have been given by the God that you worship, for the trial 
of such women as happen to be guilty of the terrible 
crime of being cursed with jealous husbands. This law 
provides that, whenever a man finds himself possessed of 
the green-eyed monster, jealousy, and yet is unable to 
adduce any proof of guilt against his wife, he shall bring 
her to the priest, who, after the performance of many silly 
ceremonies, is required to compel her to drink a bowl of 
water made foul with filth from the floor of the tabernacle, 
and with other nauseous and deleterious substances. The 
twenty-seventh verse says: “And when he hath made her 
to drink the water, then it shall come to pass, that, if she 
be defiled, and have done trespass against her husband, 
that the water that causeth the curse shall enter into her, 
and become bitter [who can know that it becomes bitter?], 
and her belly shall swell and her thigh shall rot: and tho 
woman shall be a curse among her people.” 

How this law could be executed, and the woman still 
remain alive, “ a curse among her people,” I cannot con¬ 
ceive, since there was, already in force, another law which 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


445 


required that “ the adulteress shall surely be put to death ” 
(Lev. xx, 10). Did the swelling of the belly and rotting of 
the thigh, or did they not, constitute positive proof of the 
guilt of the unfortunate women who were subjected to this 
barbarous mode of trial? If they did, why were the 
guilty parties permitted to live ? Why were they not put 
to death, as required by the Levitical law just mentioned? 
If they did not, what was the value of this mode of trial ? 
Was it any test at all of either guilt or innocence ? Were 
not innocent women just as likely to suffer from its action ? 
and to become “a curse among” their people, as were 
those who were guilty ? Be all this as it may, however, 
what could be more blasphemous than to thus charge God 
w T itli believing in the infallible power of this the lowest 
and the most abominable of all forms of fetichism, and 
with compelling his peculiar people to practice it? This 
form of fetichism—the lowest and grossest of all forms of 
superstition—is now being abandoned by all mankind, 
except some of the most hopelessly degraded tribes of 
Africa. Some of these tribes still try persons, suspected 
of witchcraft, or other crimes, by compelling them to 
swallow a poison of so deadly a nature that nearly all who 
take it, whether they be innocent or guilty, instantly fall 
down and expire. All who thus perish are, of course, 
supposed to be guilty. Indeed, after taking the test 
poison, or fetich, they rarely live long enough to even 
assert their own innocence, much less to prove it ? And 
do you really believe that the infinitely great and glorious 
power that rules the universe, and that you idolatrously 
worship under the name of God, was ever, as here repre¬ 
sented, a degraded fetichist ? 

This most horrible form of fetichism, like every other 
form of that monstrous superstition, consists in attribut¬ 
ing deific power and intelligence to certain inanimate 
objects, such as stones, plants, medicines, etc. In the 
case before us, the foul drugged water, like a kind of god, 
was supposed to possess a certain virtue, or species 


446 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED, 


of intelligence, by which it was enabled to discover, and, 
by a difference in its mode of operation, to make known to 
men, the guilt or the innocence of a woman charged with 
adultery. It will not do for the champions of the Bible to 
claim that, in this case, the guilt or the innocence of the 
woman on trial was discovered and made known by the 
miraculous interposition of God’s own direct power. The 
Bible does not claim any such thing. It does not claim 
anything miraculous in the whole matter. It makes the 
test as pure a form of fetichism as was any ever practiced 
by the lowest tribes of African savages. It attributes the 
whole detective virtue or power to the fetich alone, to the 
drugged water, and not to God. If, by his own direct 
power, miraculously exercised, God had proposed himself 
to discover, and to make known the guilt or the innocence 
of a woman charged with adultery, would he have required 
the aid of a priest, or of a fetich, of “the water that 
causetli the curse ? ” If, in this case, the detective opera¬ 
tion was performed by God himself, was he, or was he not, 
materially aided in that operation by the large dose 
of drugged water which the woman had swallowed? If he 
was, might he not now be greatly aided, in his operation 
of converting sinners, by administering to those sinners 
large doses of certain powerful drugs ? Might he not be 
enabled to convert, all at once, an entire congregation of 
the toughest old sinners, if, to all the members of that 
congregation, were administered, at the same time, power¬ 
ful doses of tartar-emetic, croton-oil, or cantharides? I 
would that, for their own satisfaction, and for the informa¬ 
tion of the world, a congregation of my most sinful oppo¬ 
nents would try this truly interesting experiment upon 
themselves. 

I do not suppose that even the champions of the Bible 
will now have the effrontery to contend that the moral 
guilt or innocence of a man would, at the present time, in 
any way, modify the effect which a dose of calomel, strych¬ 
nine, or any other powerful drug, would have upon him 


ERRORS OP THE BIBLE. 


447 


if taken into liis stomach. And yet the effects of such 
drugs, when taken into the stomach, are evidently bound 
to be the same now that they always were. Since, then, 
under the same physical conditions, they now affect the 
innocent and the guilty alike, it is evident that they have 
always affected them thus alike. Whatever, therefore, 
may have been the nature of the drugged water in ques¬ 
tion, it could not have been, and, consequently, was not, 
in any way, modified, in its purely physical effect, when 
taken into the stomach, by the moral guilt or the moral 
innocence of the party taking it. Its effect could have 
been modified only by physical conditions. If, when 
taken into the stomach by a woman, its natural tendency 
was to cause her belly to swell and her thigh to rot, it 
must have had this tendency, all the same, whether the 
woman had, or had not, been guilty of adultery. If the 
woman had had sexual intercourse with a man, and if that 
sexual intercourse had, in any way, changed her physical 
condition, then this changed physical condition might 
have modified the effect of the drugged water, when taken 
into her stomach. This modification of effect, however, 
would have been exactly the same whether the change in 
her physical condition had been produced by sexual inter¬ 
course with her husband, or with some other man. The 
drugged water could not possibly have gone to the records 
and ascertained whether she was, or was not, legally mar¬ 
ried to the man who, by sexual intercourse with her, had 
produced, in her physical condition, the change that 
tended to modify its own effect upon her, when taken into 
her stomach. 

No matter, however, how innocent a woman may have 
been whose jealous husband had her dosed with this foul, 
drugged water, if her belly swelled, as it nearly always did, 
and her thigh rotted, as it also nearly always did, no one 
could ever be made to believe that she was otherwise than 
guilty. On the other hand, no matter how guilty the 
woman may have been who was subjected to this form of 


448 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


trial, if her belly failed, as it sometimes did, to swell, and 
her thigh to rot, no one could be made to believe that she 
was otherwise than innocent. This test, this fetich, sup¬ 
posed to have been prescribed by God himself, was be¬ 
lieved to be infallible. And yet, by its action, untold 
thousands of the purest and most virtuous wives were 
made poor, suffering, and utterly hopeless outcasts for 
ever. With their swelled bellies and their rotted thighs, 
they were “ a curse among ” their people. Even their 
best friends turned from them with unutterable loathing, 
regarding them as vile adulteresses who were being slowly 
consumed by the fearful curse of God. No one will ever 
know the untold suffering to innocent women, and to their 
families, that was caused by the action of this monstrous 
law, the practice of this horrible form of fetichism. And 
while so many innocent women were thus destroyed by 
the most fearful tortures, mental and physical, many a real 
adulteress stood this test, and was restored to the arms of 
her now satisfied husband, and to the bosom of the now 
approving congregation of the Lord. 

If we now had a drug which, when taken into the 
stomach, would inevitably cause the belly of a guilty 
woman to swell, and her thigh to rot, how many of our 
women, who profess to believe every word of the Bible, 
would have confidence enough in the counteracting in¬ 
fluence of their own innocence to make them willing to 
take a dose of this drug ? Would any one of them risk 
the experiment? Would any one of them expect the drug 
to examine the records and ascertain whether she was or 
was not legally married to the man whose sexual embraces 
she may have received? Would any one of them expect 
the drug to perceive any difference between her stomach 
and the stomach of a woman whose marriage was not 
legal, or to make any difference in its action upon her be¬ 
cause of the legality of her marriage? Would not all of 
our women, on the contrary, expect such a drug to operate, 
as does any other drug, the same upon the innocent and 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


449 


the guilty? Do they, then, with all their pretended faith 
in the Bible, really believe that the God they worship, the 
infinite power that rules the universe, was ever so de¬ 
graded a fetichist as to believe in the power of a drug to 
discover the guilt of an adulterous woman, and, by intelli¬ 
gently modifying its action upon her, make her guilt 
known to others ? Dare the champions of the Bible bring 
this horribly blasphemous charge of fetichism against 
God, by contending that he originated, or that he ever 
approved, the monstrous law in question ? If they dare 
do this, will they please inform us why it was that he 
so unjustly discriminated against the women, why it was 
that, when a woman became jealous of her husband, she 
was not permitted to have him dosed with the belly¬ 
swelling, thigh-rotting, curse-water in question? If we 
had a drug now, which, if taken into the stomach, would 
thus infallibly discover and fearfully punish the guilt of 
the man taking it, how many of my opponents would dare 
take a dose of it ? 

“ And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto 
Aaron saying, Whosoever he be of thy seed in their gene¬ 
rations that hath any blemish, let him not approach to 
offer the bread of his God: for whatsoever man he be 
that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, 
or lame, or that hath a flat nose, or anything superfluous, 
or a man that is broken-footed, or broken-handed, or 
orook-backed, or a dwarf, or that a blemish in his eye, or 
be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken, he hath 
a blemish, he shall not come nigh to offer the bread of his 
God ” (Lev, xxi, 16, 20). “ He that is wounded in the 

stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter 
into the congregation of the Lord. A bastard shall not 
enter into the congregation of the Lord ; even to his tenth 
generation shall he not enter into the congregation of the 
Lord ” (Deut. xxiii, 1, 2). 

And now I challenge the champions of the Bible to 
point out, among the savages of any part of the world, a 


450 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


single law, or a single custom, more cruel and unjust to its 
victims, more unliumanizing in its influence upon the 
people, or more blasphemous in its reflections upon God, 
than was this law for the wholesale proscription, in their 
dearest rights, of all those who, by either birth or accident, 
were so unfortunate as to be afflicted with any physical 
defect or deformity. Liars, thieves, murderers, crimi¬ 
nals of every description, if free from all physical blemish, 
were permitted to enter freely into the congregation of 
the Lord. The very best of men, however, were at once 
deprived of this, the dearest of all their privileges, if they 
were so unfortunate as to become lame, blind, or in any 
other way physically imperfect. Instead of being per¬ 
mitted, as it should have been, to bring to its victim 
increased sympathy and kindness, every such misfortune 
was treated as an unpardonable crime. Its victim was 
rendered tenfold more unfortunate by being thus treated 
as something that was hateful in the sight of God, as 
something unfit to associate with any but the outcasts 
from society. 

Moses, through whom God is said to have given this 
inhuman law to the world, is admitted, on all hands, to 
have been a notorious polygamist, liar, thief, and murderer. 
And yet, blackened as he was by all manner of crimes, he 
is represented, by the Bible and its champions, as having 
been, above all other men, the favorite and the companion 
of the Lord; as having been the only man with whom 
the Lord ever condescended to associate on terms of 
entire equality, as the only man unto whom the Lord ever 
“ spake, face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend; ” 
as the only man to whom the Lord ever showed his “back 
parts.” As represented by the Bible, therefore, and its 
champions, crimes did not render men at all displeasing 
in the sight of the Lord. It seems that he could endure 
anything else better than he could the sight of physical 
blemishes of any kind. Upon these he could not look with 
the least degree of allowance. 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE.. 


451 


When we consider these facts, and consider that all men 
naturally incline to hate whatever they believe God hates, 
and to love whatever they believe he loves, we can easily 
understand why it is that the believers in the Bible have 
always exhibited a far greater hatred toward every form 
of physical imperfection or deformity than they have ex¬ 
hibited toward any form of crime or of moral obliquity. 
We can easily understand why it was that David, who was 
pre-eminently a man after God’s own heart, and who, as 
we elsewhere have seen, was guilty of the habitual com¬ 
mission of almost every form of infamous crime, so hated 
the sight of the blind, the lame, and the otherwise physic¬ 
ally afflicted, that he sometimes offered premiums for their 
wanton destruction. “ And David said on that day, Who¬ 
soever getteth up to the gutter, and smiteth the lame, and 
the blind, that are hated of David’s soul, he shall be chief 
and captain. Wherefore they said, The blind and the 
lame shall not come into the house” (2 Sam. v, 8). “So' 
Joab the son of Zeruiah went first up [to smite the 
lame and the blind], and was chief” (1 Chron. xi, 6). 
And God is represented as being well pleased with the 
conduct, on this occasion, of the worse than brutal mon¬ 
ster, Joab, and with that of the equally brutal monster, 
David, who, for the unspeakably atrocious murder of these 
poor, helpless persons, rewarded the monster murderer,* 
Joab, with the leadership of all the armies of God’s pecu¬ 
liar people. 

In the conduct of Joab and David, on this occasion, we 
perceive the inevitably brutalizing effect, upon the charac¬ 
ters of men, of that monstrous Bible error, the law in 
question against physically afflicted persons. As to David 
himself, he seems to have been quite vain of his physical 
perfections. This we are led to infer, from the fact that,, 
on the occasion of a wonderful religious revival, he- 
stripped of his clothes and, in all his naked beauty,, 
danced and shouted before the admiring gaze of his sub¬ 
jects. He seemed specially delighted to exhibit his name- 


452 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


less charms to the view of the young women of the 
congregation. Michal, the most modest of all his many 
wives, saw him going through this little performance, and, 
in that tone of cutting sarcasm which only offended wives 
know how to use, and which, above all other things, is the 
dread of guilty husbands, said: “How glorious was the 
king of Israel to-day, who uncovered himself to-day in the 
eyes of the handmaids of his servants, as one of the vain 
fellows shamelessly uncovereth himself ” (2 Sam. vi, 20). 
The Lord, however, who seems to have been highly pleased 
with David’s indecent exposure of his person on this occa¬ 
sion, and who had himself once indecently exposed his 
own “ back parts ” (Ex. xxxiii, 23), to Moses, punished 
Michal for her reproof of David, by inflicting upon her 
the then dreaded curse of perpetual barrenness ” (2 Sam. 
vi, 13, 23). 

If possible, however this monstrous law against afflicted 
persons was surpassed in atrocity by that against bastards 
to their tenth generations. Could these bastards help 
what was done by their ancestors ten generations back ? 
If not, what could be more unreasonable, or more cruel, than 
to thus punish them for the deeds of those distant ances¬ 
tors? Half the Hebrews of that time were either bastards, 
or the near descendants of bastards. Will the champions 
of the Bible have the blasphemous effrontery to charge 
God, to charge the infinite power that rules the universe, 
with being the author of this infamous law against inno¬ 
cent persons ? If bastards were so hateful in God’s sight 
as this law indicates that they were, why did he have his 
only son born a bastard, and why do you not now exclude 
these hateful objects from his congregations, even to their 
tenth generations? Are not bastards as hateful in his 
sight now as they ever were ? If this infamous law 
were now rigidly enforced, how many of my opponents 
would be permitted to “ enter into the congregation of the 
Lord?” 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


453 


If there come any unto you, and bring not this doc¬ 
trine [that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh], receive him 
not into your house, neither bid him God-speed ” (2 John 
i, 10). No matter how honest a man may be in his unbelief 
in the absurd doctrine in question, no matter how excellent 
he may be as a man, as a citizen, and as a neighbor, he must, 
according to the provisions of this commandment, which 
in all Christian countries is still in force, be denied all 
food, all shelter, all employment, all sympathy, all encour¬ 
agement, all kind words, all means of living, all hope of 
happiness, all the inalienable rights of man ; in short, all 
that renders a prolongation of life either possible or de¬ 
sirable. He must, if possible, be made to miserably 
perish, in the street, or in a dungeon, of hunger, of 
cold, of friendlessness, and of despair, or else be com¬ 
pelled to sacrifice his conscience and his manhood, to 
falsely pretend to believe that which he does not, and 
which he cannot, believe ; in short, to become that most 
despicable of all mean creatures, a puling hypocrite. 

Cruel and unjust treatment, such as, by this command¬ 
ment, all Christians are required to inflict upon all the 
unbelievers in their absurd dogmas, never has converted, 
and never possibly can convert, any real unbeliever to a 
real believer in the dogmas of those from whom the cruel 
and unjust treatment has been, or may be, received. It 
has, however, succeeded, and will, doubtless, still suc¬ 
ceed, for a time at least, in filling society, and especially 
the church, with whole armies of those slimy mockeries 
of manhood, religious hypocrites. This is one of those 
uncontradicted and fatally erroneous teachings of the 
Bible upon which is founded that terrible sectarian intoler¬ 
ance which has so constantly kept all Christendom shrouded 
in gloom and drenched in human blood. And the effect 
of this error, and of other similar errors, is still alive in 
the Church to-day. So far as she has the power, the 
Church still prescribes, crushes, and reduces to puling 
hypocrites, all who do not voluntarily accept her detest- 


454 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


able dogmas. In this the light of the nineteenth century, 
in this the boasted land of civil and religious liberty, I 
inyself have suffered many grievous persecutions from 
those whose humanity has been dwarfed or perverted by 
this, and by other similar teachings of the Bible. And is 
it not horrible blasphemy to charge God with the author¬ 
ship of teachings so pernicious ? 

Similar to the above, in its monstrous spirit of intoler¬ 
ance, in its fearfully bloody consequences, is the following 
doctrine which is said to have originated with the so-called 
meek and lowly Jesus, with God himself, while on earth 
in the form of a man: “And he [Jesus] said unto 
them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel 
[what gospel?] to every creature. He that believeth [be¬ 
lie veth what ?] and is baptized [baptized how?] shall be 
saved [saved from what?], but he that believeth not [be¬ 
lieveth not what?] shall be damned ” [damned to what?] 
(Mark xvi, 15, 16). 

As to what it is that, according to this commandment, 
every creature ” is required to “ believe,” or as to what 
is meant by being “ saved,” or being “ damned,” I will not 
now stop to consider. Let these terms mean what they 
may, the conditions upon which, according to this passage, 
salvation and damnation are made respectively to depend, 
are very simple. No amount of wickedness, on the part 
of him “ that believeth and is baptized,” can possibly pre¬ 
vent him from being “ saved;” and no amount of goodness 
on the part of him “ that believeth not,” can possibly pre¬ 
vent him from being “damned.” The goodness or the 
badness of a man has nothing to do in the matter. Salva¬ 
tion is made to depend upon belief alone, and damnation 
upon unbelief alone. 

From all this, it is clear that a man’s salvation, or his 
damnation, depends entirely upon his power, or his want 
of power, to believe certain arbitrary and often extremely 
absurd dogmas. But whence comes the necessary power 
in question ? Paul kindly answers this question as fol- 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


455 


lows : “ For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that 
[the saving faith in question is] not of yourselves [no mat¬ 
ter how hard you may try, you cannot manufacture or 
create it for yourselves]: it is the gift of God ” [alone] 
(Eph. ii, 8). If, then, God fails, as he usually does, to 
give us this faith, and then damns us, as my opponents 
declare that he always does, because of our want of it, 
our damnation is indisputably the direct result of his own 
horribly cruel neglect of duty. Just as reasonably might 
he damn us all, to whom he has never given wings, for our 
inability to fly, as to damn those of us, to whom he has 
never given faith, for our inability to believe. Let him 
give us wings, and we will gladly fly. Let him give us 
faith, and we will gladly believe, and be “ saved.” This 
uncontradicted and monstrous error of the Bible has* un¬ 
deniably, helped fill the world with the most fearful perse¬ 
cutions, the most horrible slaughters. Those who accept 
this fatal error, as a divine truth, will never incline to 
treat kindly and justly anyone whose unbelief is supposed 
to render him an object of God’s eternal wrath. The 
believer in this error is bound to be a bigot, and, to the 
full extent of his power, a persecutor. 

“And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord 
hath restrained me from bearing [what had the Lord done 
to her, to hinder her from bearing?]: I pray thee, go in 
unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by 
her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai [such a 
proposition from his wife would make almost any man 
hearken to her voice. Under such circumstances, would 
any of my opponents be deaf?]. And Sarai, Abram’s 
wife [what a love of a wife she was!], took Hagar her 
maid the Egyptian, . . . [how docile the maid seems to 
have been!], and gave her to her husband Abram to be his 
wife [what did it take to constitute a wife ?]. And he 
went into Hagar [of course he did. Would not any one 
of my opponents have done the same?], and she con¬ 
ceived ” (Gen. xvi, 2-4). 


456 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


At best, this is a very immoral—indeed, a very inde¬ 
cent—story, fit to be read only by the inmates of bawdy 
houses. It is certainly not a proper kind of literature to 
place in the hands or children of heathens. With their 
only partially-developed intellects, their moral natures, 
often weak at best, are almost sure to be utterly corrupted 
by the reading- of obscene stories like this. The Bible, 
which is filled with such stories, should, therefore, be 
carefully kept out of their hands. This disgusting story, 
however, becomes far more destructive to morality, when 
God himself is represented as its author; when he is rep¬ 
resented as being so well pleased with the conduct of the 
infamous actors, in the scandalous affair which it nar¬ 
rates, that he proceeded at once to make them his special 
favorites and companions, to pour out upon them liis 
richest blessings, and to hold them up, as models of wis¬ 
dom and of excellence, for the admiration and imitation of- 
all nations and of all ages. 

As might have been expected, under the circumstances,. 
Sarai’s wonderful example of wifely generosity was faith¬ 
fully followed by her two charming grand-daughters, 
Rachel and Leah. Stimulated by so illustrious an ex¬ 
ample, these two “mothers of Israel” vied with each 
other in the loving wifely duty of loaning their respective 
servant girls to their libidinous but godly joint husband, 
the famous old Jacob. And Abram’s wonderful example 
of obedience to the wishes of his generous and thoughtful 
wife was faithfully followed, too, by his grandson, this 
same famous old Jacob, who, like a model husband, un¬ 
complainingly hearkened to the voice of his two precious 
wives, Rachel and Leah, every time they wished him to go 
into the kitchen unto their two servant girls. What a 
happy family! 

And the God that you so blindly and so devoutly wor¬ 
ship is represented, by the Bible and its champions, as 
fully approving the shocking licentiousness of this famous 
family; as showering upon them his choicest blessings; 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


457 


making them liis special favorites and companions; and 
iviS holding them up, as models of excellence, for the ad¬ 
miration and the imitation of all other families. Of neces¬ 
sity, this God, if, indeed, he be, as you teach that he is, an 
intelligent being, must have regarded the grossly licen¬ 
tious conduct of this old patriarch and his family as 
either right or wrong. If he regarded it as right, at that 
time, then, since there cannot be any change, either in his 
own nature or in that of the conduct in question, he is 
bound to regard similar conduct, in other families, as 
equally right, at the present time. And if he regards it as 
right, must it not actually be right? Can it be possible 
that, for forty centuries or more, he has been laboring 
under a fatal mistake in regard to the nature of such con¬ 
duct? In order to approve your God’s conduct, in regard 
to this case, are you not compelled to approve also the 
conduct of Jacob and his family, and the similar conduct 
of other families, both ancient and modern? Can you, 
without condemning God, condemn that which he ap¬ 
proves ? And can you, without encouraging the grossest 
immorality, approve the conduct in question? If you 
approve this conduct as being right, proper, and moral, 
what kind of conduct is it that you would condemn as 
wrong, improper, and immoral? 

If, on the other hand, your God regarded the licentious 
conduct of Jacob and his family as wrong, then the fact 
that he, nevertheless, approved and encouraged that con¬ 
duct is proof positive that he was a bad God, and that he 
led his worshipers into wicked ways. Besides this, since 
he never changes, he must still be a bad God, and must 
still be wont to lead his worshipers into wicked ways. In 
any view of the case, therefore, those who read this story, 
and who believe it to be of divine origin, are bound to be 
greatly degraded, in their moral natures, by that reading 
and that belief. We all know that the grossly licentious 
conduct of Jacob and his family was shockingly immoral. 
It makes no difference, therefore, whether your God ap- 


458 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


proved and encouraged that immoral conduct, through 
ignorance, or through evil design. The undeniable fact 
that he did approve and encourage it at all is proof posi¬ 
tive that his influence, and that of his Bible, are on the 
side of immorality. Such a God is certainly unfit to be 
either loved or worshiped by any except extremely im¬ 
moral persons. 

In the nineteenth chapter of Genesis, we have two shock¬ 
ingly immoral stories concerning the so-called righteous 
man, Lot, and his two daughters. The one of these stories, 
represents Lot as voluntarily offering to put out these two 
daughters, who were then virgins, to be outraged at 
pleasure, by a mob of sensual men, who were attempting 
to enter his house for the purpose of capturing two 
strangers who were stopping over night with him. Instead 
of risking his life, like a true man, in defense of his house, 
his guests, and the honor of his daughters, this despicable 
dastard offered to buy his own safety at the price of the 
honor, if not of the lives, of his two virgin daughters. He 
did not ask the consent of these daughters to be put out 
to the mob. He proposed to dispose of them just as he 
would have disposed of a couple of cows. And the God 
that you worship is represented as fully approving the 
vile conduct, on this occasion, of this inhuman father, and 
as holding him up as a model for the admiration and the 
imitation of the whole world. How fearfully demoraliz¬ 
ing such examples, thus indorsed, are bound to be! 

The other story represents Lot as committing the mon¬ 
strous crime of incest upon these same two daughters. 
This story is so shockingly obscene that I cannot notice it 
in detail. Indeed, the language in which both of these 
extremely immoral stories are told is far too obscene to be 
literally quoted. And yet this horrible case of open in¬ 
cest, this shameless debauching of his own daughters by 
this monster sensualist, the so-called righteous Lot, this 
causing of them to become the mothers of his own off¬ 
spring, is represented as being all right in the sight of 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


459 


your God, and in that of the foul-mouthed vender of 
obscenity who insults the decency of the world by telling 
the story. 

It is true that the writer does incidentally remark that, 
on each of the occasions on which he committed the atro¬ 
cious crime in question, the monster, Lot, was so drunk 
that he did not know what he was doing. Whether Lot’s 
worse than beastly [I beg every beast’s pardon] drunken¬ 
ness is mentioned as an excuse for his shocking conduct 
with those moral monstrosities, his own daughters, or not, 
I do not pretend to know. If it is, it is certainly a miser¬ 
ably poor excuse. Indeed, it is worse than no excuse at 
all. No crime is ever rendered any the less criminal by 
being committed in connection with another crime. The 
two crimes, committed together, are always worse than 
would be either one of them, if committed alone. Even 
if it were true, then, that Lot’s crime of incest was com¬ 
mitted at the same time with his crime of drunkenness, 
he would simply stand before us a more guilty man than 
he would if he had committed only the former crime. 
The pretended excuse, however, is evidently founded upon 
a falsehood. Lot certainly knew what he was doing. It 
is a well-established physiological fact that a man, when 
so drunk as to be unconscious of what he is doing, is totally 
incapable of performing the act upon which parentage 
depends. Many modern champions of the Bible, whose 
intelligence will not permit them to do otherwise, now 
admit this fact, and, in making this admission, compel 
themselves to admit also that Lot did know very well what 
he was doing, and that the Bible speaks incorrectly when 
it declares that he did not. In order, if possible, how¬ 
ever, to excuse Lot, these champions set up the still 
weaker plea that he probably thought he was committing 
the illicit sexual act in question upon some woman of the 
neighborhood who had very obligingly come in to share 
his bed with him, and to furnish him the means of indulg¬ 
ing to the full in sensual pleasures. These apologists, 


460 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


however, forget the fact, set forth by the Bible, that there 
were no women in the neighborhood, and that Lot and his 
daughters believed themselves to be the only people then 
living upon the earth. 

Be all these things as they may, however, will the 
champions of the Bible be so kind as to inform us what 
possible good to the world ever has been, or ever can be, 
derived from the reading of these, and of other similar 
shockingly obscene stories of the Bible? As histories, 
are they of any more use or interest to the world than 
would be similar accounts of similar scenes, enacted at 
the present time, in the most horribly degraded and crim¬ 
inal families, or the lowest dens of infamy ? And as to 
morality, would it not be insulting the intelligence of even 
the champions of the Bible themselves to ask if they 
expect to render the people more moral by cramming them 
with this or with any other similar bawdy-house literature? 

Suppose that there now should be published a book, 
containing as many obscene stories as are to be found in 
the Bible, and abounding in as much obscene language, but 
relating to similar bawdy-house scenes of the present time, 
would our good orthodox mothers, think you, be very 
solicitous to have that book placed in the hands of their 
own children, and sent to all the heathens of the world? 
Would they not, on tfue contrary, raise a great and a just 
cry for the immediate and utter suppression of that book? 
Why, then, do they labor so assiduously to place such a 
book in the hands of their own children and of the 
heathens at all ? Is immorality any the less immoral, or 
obscenity any the less obscene, because it is old, and be¬ 
cause the book in which it is found is called the Bible, 
than it would be if it were new, and were found in a book 
of some other name ? 

Suppose that, instead of being related in the Bible, of 
Jacob Israel and his family, who lived some four thousand 
years ago, the following story were related in a dime novel 
or some other such book, of Jacob Smith and his family,. 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


461 


of the present time, would the story, think you, constitute 
proper reading for your children? And would the book 
containing it be a proper one to keep upon your center 
table or in your library, or to send as a teacher of morality 
and virtue to the heathens? If not, how can you advocate 
such uses for such a story or for such a book at all ? Is 
the effect of the story, on the minds and the moral natures 
of those who read it, at all modified by the age, the size, 
the shape, the quality of paper, the style of binding, the 
cost, or the name of the book in which it is found ? 

The story in question is found in Gen. xxx, 14-17, and 
is as follows : “ And Reuben went in the days of wheat 
harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought 
them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, 
Give me, I pray thee, of thy son’s mandrakes. And she 
said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken 
my husband ? and wouldst thou take away my son’s man¬ 
drakes also? And Rachel [who evidently meant busi¬ 
ness] said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to-night for 
thy son’s mandrakes. [This fair offer, it seems, was 
promptly accepted.] And Jacob came out of the field in 
the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, 
Thou must come in unto me [Leah evidently meant busi¬ 
ness, too, of a different kind]: for surely I have hired thee 
with my son’s mandrakes. And he lay with her that 
night. [What a love of a husband he was ! so patient! so 
obedient,!] And God hearkened unto Leah [yes, God was 
always sure to be present to see and to hear whenever 
any such things were going on], and she conceived, and 
bare Jacob the fifth son. And Leah said, God hath given 
me my hire [I thought Jacob had given it to her. What 
had God to do in the matter except as a mere spectator?], 
because I have given my maiden to my husband.” (What 
a strange reason! Jacob must have put that idea into the 
poor, weak woman’s head, to encourage her to continue 
giving him the carnal use of her maiden. Jacob was no 
fool.) 


462 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


What a happy family this was! It is no wonder that? 
God rewarded Leah for the pious act of giving her maiden 
to her husband! Take notice of this fact, ye Bible-wor- 
shiping wives, and act accordingly! Since God never 
changes, he must still delight to see wives act thus gener¬ 
ously toward their husbands, and must still be willing to 
reward such acts of generosity. Should you give your 
servant-girl to your husband, as Leah gave her’s to her 
half of her husband, God would probably reward you as 
he rewarded her. Better try the experiment anyway. 

It is no wonder that God selected this lovely family as 
a model for the imitation of all other families. It is no 
wonder that he selected it as the fountain from which all 
his peculiar people were to spring. There was, indeed, 
something very peculiar about this family—a peculiar 
looseness in regard to sexual matters. With this peculi¬ 
arity, God seems to have been highly pleased, and to have 
done all he could to have it perpetuated among his pecu¬ 
liar people. To a great extent, indeed, it was this peculiar 
looseness among them, in regard to sexual matters, that 
rendered his chosen people a peculiar people. So far as 
we know their history, not an individual among them ever 
refused an opportunity to indulge in illicit sexual pleas¬ 
ures, except Joseph, on one single occasion, and his 
refusal, on that occasion, was doubtless due to the fact 
that he had just finished satisfying his sexual desires upon 
a servant-girl, or some other woman who was younger and 
more beautiful than old Mrs. Potiphar, to whom the refusal 
in question was given. I know of no other theory on 
which to account for Joseph’s very singular behavior on 
that occasion. And since God never changes, he must 
still desire to see this same peculiar sexual looseness, 
among his worshipers of the present time, that he de¬ 
lighted to see among those of long-departed ages. Do my 
opponents never think of these things ? And do they 
never indulge in this God-approved form of peculiarity ? 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


46a 


If they do not, then some of the plainest teachings of the 
Bible are totally lost upon them. 

Who can conceive a more beautiful picture than must 
have been presented by that chosen man of God, the 
pious, the patient, the obedient, the much-married old 
Jacob, as, for sexual purposes, he was being hired, for 
mandrakes and other such things, back and forth from one 
charming w T ife to the other, and from both charming wives 
to both charming servant-girls; while God, forsaking the 
rest of the universe, was devoting his entire time to the 
witnessing of these wonderfully interesting proceedings, 
and in so aiding the flagging virility of old Jacob, that 
this famous patriarch was enabled to keep all four of his 
women up to their full breeding capacity? Who can con¬ 
ceive a more beautiful picture of filial love and duty than 
must have been presented by Jacob’s son, the incipient 
patriarch Beuben, when seeing his poor old father over¬ 
burdened with matrimonial labors, he bravely and gener¬ 
ously took a portion of those labors upon himself, when 
he “ went and lay with Bilhah, his father’s concubine : and 
Irael heard it ?” [heard what] ? How proud the good old 
father must have been of so promising a son—of such “ a 
chip out of the old block !” What a delightful condition 
of society we should have, if, according to God’s clearly- 
indicated wishes, all his worshipers would now follow the 
illustrious example of this model family! How delightful 
it would be for my opponents, the champions of the Bible, 
to be each thus hired back and forth among several wives 
and servant-girls, for candy, peanuts, chewing-gum, etc.! 
Why should it not be thus ? 

The champions of the Bible all admit that there is 
never any change either in God or in the moral nature of 
actions. Such conduct, therefore, as prevailed in Jacob’s 
family, having once been all right in God’s sight, is bound 
to be equally right in his sight now. The Mormons cor¬ 
rectly take this view of the subject and act accordingly. 
They are the only true Bible-Christians now in existence, 


464 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


and whoever opposes their polygamous institutions, op¬ 
poses the Bible. With the Bible entirely on their side, 
they will be hard to put down, while the Bible itself stands. 
But what two intelligent champions of the Bible can look 
each other steadfastly in the face, and, without laughing, 
declare that they really believe that this monstrously im¬ 
moral and shockingly blasphemous story was ever inspired 
by the infinitely great and glorious power that rules the 
universe, or that, in the form of a person, this power ever 
occupied its time in witnessing and in blessing the dis¬ 
gustingly indecent conduct of Jacob and his family ? 

As to the errors of obscenity to be found in the Bible, 
they can be counted by the hundreds; obscenities, too, of 
so gross a nature that any one of them, appearing in any 
other book, would condemn that book to exclusion from 
all respectable libraries, if not to suppression by law. 
From the very disgusting nature of these errors, however, 
I prefer to give them no further notice. 

Another monstrous error of the Bible is its unequivocal 
advocacy of human slavery, which, in one form or another, 
has produced more sin and sorrow than have almost all 
other causes combined, and which, consequently, is itself 
a crime of so atrocious a nature that, as Dr. Adam Clarke 
remarks, perdition itself can hardly afford punishments 
adequate to the offense of those who are guilty of practic¬ 
ing it. The Bible approves even that most hideous form 
slavery, the slavery of one brother to another and the sell¬ 
ing of children into slavery by their own parents. “If 
thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and 
in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. . . And 
if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall 
not go out as the men-servants do. If she please not her 
master, . . . then shall he let her be redeemed” (Ex. xxi, 
2, 7, 8). “And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be 
waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou §halt not compel 
him to serve, as a bond servant. . . Both thy bond-men 
and thy bond-maids, which thou shalt have, shall be of 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


465 


the heathen [all nations except the Jews] that are round 
about you; of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond¬ 
maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do 
sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their 
families that are with you, which they begat in your land: 
and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take 
them as an inheritance for your children after you, to 
inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bond- 
men forever ” (Lev. xxv, 39, 44, 46). 

You will notice that all parts of this law are mandatory, 
and not merely permissory. It is not said that ye may 
buy bond-men and bond-maids, but that ye shall buy 
them. The fact that slavery, with all its untold concom¬ 
itant evils, does not now curse every country in which the 
Bible is known, is due, not to the fact that any change for 
the better has taken place either in this ultra pro-slavery 
book, or in its ultra pro-slavery God, but to the fact that 
in regard to this matter, the people of nearly all civilized 
nations have risen above the teachings of this pernicious 
book, and of its monstrous God. Both God and the Bi¬ 
ble are unchanged. They are just as ultra pro-slavery 
now as they ever were. God distinctly declared that, 
among his people, slavery should exist “forever.” It is 
an undeniable fact, therefore, that all of us who fought for 
the overthrow of slavery in America, fought against the 
God of the Bible, and that w T e also overcame him. 

Another very abominable error of the Bible consists in 
its teaching all of those for whom it was written to sell to 
strangers the flesh of animals that die of disease. “Ye 
[my opponents and all others for whom the Bible was 
written—all the true worshipers of the Godof the Bible] 
shall not eat of anything that dietli of itself: thou shalt 
give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may 
eat it; or thou mayest sell it unto an alien [ anyone not of 
the same nationality as the seller] : for thou art an holy 
people unto the Lord thy God” (Deut. xiv, 21). From 
this, we perceive that all of those—be they Jews or gen- 


I 


466 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

tiles—wlio are holy unto the Lord their God, are not only 
permitted, but actually commanded, to dispose of the flesh 
of their fatally diseased animals to strangers or to aliens. 
Suppose, then, that, in obedience to this command, some 
Jew, or other person, who is holy unto the Lord his God, 
and to whom you are a stranger or an alien, should sell to 
you the flesh of an animal that had died of trichinae, or 
some other communicable and deadly disease. Suppose, 
too, that, from the eating of this flesh, yourself and your 
family should be dying of a horrible and incurable disease, 
would you, or would you not, justify the cold-blooded 
monster who, for a few shillings, had thus deliberately 
murdered you, on the ground that, as a man holy unto the 
Lord his God, he had obeyed this horrible commandment? 
If you could not justify him in this case, how could you 
justify him in any other case? Are not the lives of other 
people as dear to them as yours is to you? And have 
they not as good a right to their lives as you have to 
yours? Besides this, can you, in any case, condemn the 
man who obeys this monstrous commandment, without, 
thereby, condemning the monstrous God who gave it? 
Dare you even intimate that this God is any better now 
than he was when he gave this commandment? If not, 
are you not bound to admit that you are worshiping a God 
who, if he could, would have you, and tens of thousands 
of other unsuspecting persons, murdered, in the most 
horrible manner, by means of foul and fatally diseased 
flesh furnished, for money, by those who are holy unto 
himself ? 

Another monstrous and undeniable error of the Bible 
consists in its holding all women as mere property, to be, 
like so many cattle, bought, sold, hired, loaned, or other¬ 
wise transferred, at pleasure, without their own consent, 
from one man to another. As a necessary result of this 
error, so utterly inconsistent with civilization, women, as 
you all know, are still held, throughout all Christendom,, 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 407 

as, in some unexplainable way, inferior to men, and as 
entitled to fewer rights and privileges. 

I have already shown that the Bible permits a man to 
sell his own daughters as so much property. So it also 
permits a brother to sell his sisters, whenever, on the 
death of their father, they fall to him, together with their 
father’s other property, as an inheritance. If the brother 
does not wish to sell his sisters permanently, or is unable 
to find a purchaser, he has a right to hire, or loan them, 
temporarily, to other men, for any purposes whatever. 
Thus Abraham, acting on this assumed-to-be divine prin¬ 
ciple, made all the money he could out of the beautiful 
Sarah, who was, at the same time, his sister, his wife, and. 
liis property, by hiring her out, on different occasions, to> 
be the mistress or concubine of other men. His son. 
Isaac also made a great deal of money, in this same way, by 
falsely pretending that his wife, Rebecca, was his sister, 
and by hiring her out, as such, to be the mistress of an¬ 
other man. And God is represented as fully approving; 
the vile conduct, on these occasions, of these two holy men. 

By the Jews, who were governed by the laws and the 
principles contained in the Bible, captured women were 
alw'ays included, as property, with captured cattle, and 
were disposed of in exactly the same way. As an example, 
see the case of the captured Midianitish women, cattle, 
and other property, as related in the thirty-first chapter of 
Numbers. After brutally butchering all the Midianitish 
men, who, not expecting such an attack from a professedly 
friendly nation, w~ere totally unprepared for defense; after 
burning all their cities, towns, and villages, the band of 
robbers whom Moses, by God’s command, had sent out to 
accomplish all this destruction, returned, driving before 
them vast numbers of captured women, children, and 
cattle. Moses went out to meet these returning robbers* 
and to dispose of this immense mass of live stock. He> 
began by commanding : “ Now, therefore, kill every male 
among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath 


468 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


known man by lying witli him.” How was the fact ascer¬ 
tained, in every case, whether a woman had, or had not, 
“known man by lying with him?” Was every woman’s 
own word, in regard to that matter, taken as conclusive 
evidence, or were all of the women subjected, thus pub¬ 
licly, to a nameless and shockingly indecent surgical 
examination. 

Having thus, in a decidedly business-like manner, dis¬ 
posed of a hundred thousand head or more of what 
he regarded as worthless live stock, Moses proceeded, 
in the same business-like manner, to dispose of an¬ 
other lot as follows: “ But all the women children 
that have not known a man by lying with him, keep 
alive for yourselves.” Further on, we find an ex¬ 
plicit account of the manner in which, by God’s orders, 
Moses disposed of all the women and other live stock that 
remained after the killing just mentioned. Since this 
account contains much valuable information, I will give it 
in full. 

“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the sum 
of the prey that was taken, both of man and of beast, 
thou and Eleazar the priest, and the chief fathers of the 
congregation: and levy a tribute unto the Lord [what use 
had the Lord for any portion of this ill-gotten property?] 
of the men of war that went out to the battle; one soul 
of five hundred, both of the persons, and of the beeves, 
and of the asses, and of the sheep. [Were there souls 
among the beeves, the asses, and the sheep, the same as 
among the women?] Take it of their half, and give it 
unto Eleazar the priest, for an heave-offering of the Lord. 
[Could any living thing be presented to the Lord as a 
heave-offering until after it had been butchered and pre¬ 
pared in a particular manner ? If not, were the thirty-two 
virgins, who constituted a portion of this heave-offering, 
thus butchered and prepared, the same as were the beeves 
and other domestic animals that constituted the balance of 
this same heave-offering? Do we, or do we not, in this 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


469 


case, have a horrible instance of human sacrifices, offered, 
by his own command, to the God of the Bible—to the God 
that you serve?] And of the children of Israel’s half, 
thou shalt take one portion of fifty, of the persons, of the 
beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, of all manner of 
beasts, and give them unto the Levites, which keep the 
charge of the tabernacle of the Lord. And Moses, and 
Eleazar the priest, did as the Lord commanded Moses. 
And the booty, being the rest of the prey, which the men 
of war had caught, was six hundred thousand, and seventy 
thousand, and five thousand sheep, and three-score and 
twelve thousand beeves, and three-score and one thousand 
asses, and thirty and two thousand persons in all, of 
women that had not known man by lying with him. And 
the half, which was the portion of them that went out to 
war, was in number three hundred thousand, and seven 
and thirty thousand and five hundred sheep: and the 
Lord’s tribute of the sheep was six hundred and three¬ 
score and fifteen. And the beeves were thirty and six 
thousand, of which the Lord’s tribute was three-score and 
t’welve. And the asses were thirty thousand and five 
hundred, of which the Lord’s tribute was three-score and 
one. And the persons were sixteen thousand, of which 
the Lord’s tribute was thirty and two persons. And Moses 
gave the tribute, which was the Lord’s heave-offering, unto 
Eleazar the priest, as the Lord commanded Moses.” 

And now, will the champions of the Bible please point 
out a single particular in which these thirty-two thousand 
young women were treated differently from the sheep, the 
beeves, and the asses, together with which they were cap¬ 
tured? Were not all equally regarded and disposed of as 
live stock? And will these champions still insist that the 
infinite power that rules the universe—the power that they 
personify and worship under the name of God—ever did 
thus order the murder of a whole nation of inoffensive 
men, the burning of all their houses, tlie driving away of 
all their cattle, the cold-blooded butchery of all their cap- 


470 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tive married women and male infants, the dividing out of 
all their virgin daughters to be ravished at pleasure by 
their brutal captors, the offering of thirty-two of these 
virgins to itself as sacrifices, etc., etc.? If they do still 
insist that their God actually was guilty of having all 
these horrible deeds committed, will they have the face to 
pretend that they love such a God, and that they believe 
the world would be made better by becoming more like 
him ? 

The language of this story is so explicit that it cannot 
possibly be either misinterpreted or misunderstood. The 
champions of the Bible, therefore, unless compelled to 
notice it, uniformly avoid any mention of the story or of 
any event related therein. Indeed, of the whole catalogue 
of soul-sickening atrocities, of the description of which 
the story is made up, there is but one thing which these 
champions have ever attempted either to mitigate or to 
deny. That one thing is the sacrificing to God, as heave- 
offerings, of the thirty-two young women who fell to his 
lot as tribute. While admitting, as they all do, that God 
ordered these women to be thus sacrificed to himself, some 
of these champions assume that the order was never liter¬ 
ally executed; that the women, the asses, and the other 
unclean animals were redeemed and not sacrificed. This 
assumption, however, is entirely unsupported by evidence. 
As an argument, therefore, it is utterly worthless. It is 
true that the first-borns of asses and other unclean beasts, 
all of which had to be offered to the Lord, might be 
redeemed, providing the party offering them saw fit to 
redeem them. If he did not see fit to redeem them, how¬ 
ever, they had to be slain. No man was compelled to re¬ 
deem anything, that fell to the Lord, except the first-borns 
of his own children. In regard, therefore, to the thirty- 
two young women in question, even if they could have 
been redeemed after being devoted or set aside, by divine 
command, as heave-offerings to God, there was no one un¬ 
der any obligation to redeem them : and, since all the men 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


471 


were already bountifully supplied with women, it is not 
at all likely that anyone would have redeemed them. Even 
in this case, their sacrifice would have been almost cer¬ 
tain. 

But were not those young women all placed, by divine 
command, on the list of things “ devoted ”—of things con¬ 
secrated or set aside for holy uses ? And could anything 
thus devoted be redeemed ? Certainly not. “ Notwith¬ 
standing, no devoted thing that a man shall devote unto 
the Lord, of all that he hath, both of man and beast, and 
of the field of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed: 
every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord. None 
[whether beasts or human beings] devoted, which shall be 
devoted of men, shall be redeemed, but shall surely be 
put to death ” (Lev. xxvii, 28, 29). This law, as you see, 
clearly permits and provides for the devoting to the Lord 
of human beings, and just as clearly declares that human 
beings, thus devoted, shall not be redeemed, but shall 
surely be put to death.” If, then, the young women in 
question were not put to death, they were evidently saved 
in direct violation of this law—a law which Jephthah did 
not dare to violate, even to save the life of his own be¬ 
loved daughter, whom he had, inadvertently, devoted unto 
the Lord. 

Let the fate of the young women in question have been 
what it may, therefore, the case cannot possibly be ren¬ 
dered any better by assuming that they were not put to 
death. We know that the God of the Bible certainly did 
authorize the devoting of human beings to himself, as 
heave-offerings, and that he certainly did require that all 
persons, thus devoted, should “ surely be put to death.” 
We know, too, that on the occasion in question, he cer¬ 
tainly did, in the most distinct language, order the thirty- 
two young women in question to be thus devoted to him¬ 
self, to be put to certain death, according to this law. And 
can he be made to appear any the less odious by assuming 
that, on this occasion, the cold-blooded murderers whom 


472 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


he had chosen for his peculiar people refused to execute,, 
in all its soul-sickening details, his unutterably monstrous 
order? And would the blood-reeking cutthroats who,, 
only a few moments before, had so cheerfully and so 
promptly obeyed his order to butcher, in cold blood, just 
to get rid of them, a hundred thousand or more women 
and infants, would such men, I ask, have been likely to 
disobey when he ordered them to slay only thirty-two' 
more women for his own special gratification ? And even 
if those young women were saved from death, were they 
not reserved for a fate a thousand times worse than death? 
Were they not reserved simply to sate the lust of fhe brut¬ 
ish priests who, as God’s proxies or agents, were always- 
wont to use all of God’s property? 

“And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s 
wives into thy bosom, and gave thee the house of Israel 
and of Judah; and, if that had been too little, I would, 
moreover, have given unto thee such and such things” (2 
Sam. xii, 8). This magnificent present of a whole house¬ 
ful at one time of beautiful wives was made to David, who 
was already practicing polygamy and concubinage on quite 
an extensive scale. This present was made to him, by 
God himself—the God that you worship—in order that he 
might be able, on a grander scale, to enjoy the benefits of 
these two divine institutions. I do not quote this pas¬ 
sage, however, either to show that the God of the Bible 
was a proipoter of polygamy and concubinage, or that the 
whole mighty weight of the Bible’s influence is in favor of 
those degrading forms of immoralit}^. These facts, which 
few intelligent champions of the Bible pretend to deny, 
have already been fully established in former lectures. I 
make the quotation simply to show that the women in 
question were regarded as mere property, and were, as 
such, transferred to David, together with other property, 
without any regard to their own wishes. 

In the eleventh and twelfth verses of this same chapter,, 
we find a still worse case. “ Thus saith the Lord, Behold, 


ERRORS OE THE BIBLE. 


473 


I will raise up evil against thee, out of thine own house r 
and I will take thy wives before thine eyes, and [without 
their consent] give them unto thy neighbor, and [still 
without their consent] he shall lie with thy wives in the 
sight of this sun. For thou didst it [lay with Uriah’s 
wife] secretly; but I will do this thing [cause some other 
man to lia with David’s wives] before all Israel, and before 
the sun.” The foulest fiend of hell would blush on the 
mere suspicion of being guiJty of so abominable an act as 
that was which your God thus threatened to commit, and 
which, according to 2 Sam. xvi, 22, he actually did commit. 

In this case, according to his almost invariable custom, 
your God let the guilty party escape, and inflicted the 
most fearful punishments upon innocent persons. Instead 
of punishing the guilty David, he waited eleven years, and 
then appeased his accumulated and unreasonable wrath 
by having this guilty man slay twenty thousand innocent 
persons, and by having his own agent or proxy, David’s 
son Absalom, whom, for this very purpose, he had him¬ 
self, by almighty power, lured into the paths of vice, take 
David’s innocent wives, without their consent, to the flat 
top of a house, and there, in the most shameful manner, 
violate their persons, “before all Israel, and before the 
sun.” These women, treated thus worse than brutes, 
were doubtless among the most accomplished and refined 
ladies of the nation. David, with all his own bad qualities, 
would hardly have chosen for his queens any but modest, 
accomplished, and refined ladies. 

What, then, must have been the feelings of these ladies, 
these virtuous and modest wives and mothers, when they 
were thus dragged by their step-sen to the top of a house, 
and there repeatedly ravished, before one another’s faces, 
and in the sight of all the people ? And what must they 
have thought of the God, by the direct interposition of 
whose power they were thus so foully outraged? Would 
this God act any worse than he then acted if he were now 
to have a number of our most virtuous, modest, and re- 


474 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


fined Bible-loving wives and mothers treated in this same 
manner ? And if he should have them thus treated, as he 
may, since he never changes, what would they think of 
him? Would they still sing his praises? If not, why do 
they sing his praises at all ? And how can they hope to 
render men better by having them worship and imitate 
such a God ? Is he any better now than he was in David’s 
time ? 

Another grave error of the Bible is its teaching that 
God answers prayers; that, by whining and yelling to it, 
by telling it what to do and how to do it, men can cause 
the infinite power that rules the universe, and which is all 
the real God there is, to so change the nature and the 
direction of the various forces of which it is composed as 
to do what it would not otherwise have done, and to leave 
undone what it otherwise would have done. A belief in 
this erroneous doctrine has a very pernicious influence on 
the minds and the habits of men. In preventing them 
from depending upon their own exertions and adapting 
their lives to the laws of nature, it prevents them from 
seeking the source of all good ; and, in leading them to 
trust in the aid of what they call God, in the aid of a mere 
personification or abstraction of all the natural forces, in 
the aid of that which never does and never can aid them, 
and, in leading them to spend their time and money in the 
.so-called service of this mere abstraction or empty idea, 
this doctrine leads its believers into inevitable loss and 
bitter disappointment. 

Besides this, the doctrine in question is a horribly 
blasphemous one. Indeed, from its very nature, every 
prayer offered to him is a blasphemous insult to God. It 
necessarily presupposes that he is a plastic being without 
any will or purpose of his own, a being that can be led 
hither and thither at pleasure by men, a being that is too 
ignorant to know his own duties until he is informed of 
them by men, and too negligent to attend to them until he 
is urged by men. Could anything be more blasphemous 


ERRORS OF THE BIBLE. 


475 


Ihan a doctrine which necessarily involves presuppositions 
so derogatory to the character of God ? Remember this 
when next you presume, in what you call prayer, to give 
information and instructions to God. 

Another grave error of the Bible, and the last that I 
shall notice, is its teaching that God forgives sins; that, 
by offerings of roast meats, murdered young Gods, fulsome 
adulations, etc., the infinite power that rules the universe 
can be induced to let us off from all the legitimate conse¬ 
quences of any amount of wickedness, or can, at least, be 
induced to content itself with the horribly unjust punish¬ 
ment of some innocent person in our stead. By thus 
placing a premium upon sin, this shockingly blasphemous 
doctrine has been, and still is, one of the most fruitful 
of all sources of immorality and crime. Nearly all of 
those who die upon the gallows and who fill our prisons 
are firm believers in this monstrous doctrine. Since a 
large sin bill costs them no more than a small one, these 
persons have every inducement to run up as large sin bills 
as possible. In any case, they expect to entirely evade 
the payment of even a tithe of their own sin bills. They 
oxpect to do this by taking advantage of that moral bank¬ 
rupt act called vicarious atonement. Not so with those 
who do not know any such things as vicarious atonement 
and forgiveness of sins. Expecting, as they do, to pay 
every farthing of their own sin bills themselves, these 
persons rarely run up those bills very high. 

Thus much for a very few of the many errors of the 
Bible. And if there were no others, are not these fully 
sufficient to effectually condemn that book as a monstrous 
priestly imposition, and not the inspired word of an all¬ 
wise and perfect God ? 


476 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


LECTURE FOURTEENTH. 

THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 

In one lecture, which is all that I shall devote to the- 
subject, I can, of course, notice only a very few of the 
many so-called prophecies of the Bible. These I notice 
for the purpose of showing that, in the sense in which the 
word prophecy is now usually understood, there are very 
few real prophecies in the Bible, and that, without a single 
well-defined exception, these few never have been, and, 
from their very nature, never can be fulfilled. I also pro¬ 
pose to show that, even if they had been or should yet be 
fulfilled, their fulfilment would not have been, and would 
not yet be, of any possible benefit to the human race. In 
other words, I propose to show that, both in their promul¬ 
gation and their fulfilment, the prophecies of the Bible 
have proved total failures. 

As all Bible critics admit, the word prophet anciently 
signified simply a poet, a singer, a player on a musical 
instrument, a teacher, an interpreter; in short, a professor 
of some art or science, and not, as it is now usually 
understood to signify, a foreteller of future events. This 
was especially true among the Jews, who used the word in 
a generic sense nearly equivalent to that in which we use 
the word professor. There might have been, and probably 
were, in a few rare instances, prophets of mathematics, 
prophets of languages, prophets of astronomy, etc. Since 
the ancient Jews, however, were almost totally ignorant of 
all the sciences, and of nearly all the arts; and since they 
scorned to study the languages of the hated gentile na¬ 
tions around them, their prophetships were, naturally 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 477 

enough, confined mostly, if not entirely, to the three 
departments of poetry, music, and law. 

Many of the prophets of music were also prophets of 
poetry, composing for themselves many of the songs that 
they sung. Sometimes they extemporized songs, com¬ 
posing, singing, dancing, and playing on musical in¬ 
struments, all at the same time. This style of poetical 
composition is still quite common in many eastern coun¬ 
tries ; and the disconnected pieces thus composed, when 
committed to writing, bear a striking resemblance to the 
so-called prophetical writings of the Bible. Indeed, these 
modern productions are just as much entitled to be re¬ 
garded as prophecies as are the similar productions to be 
found in the Bible. Unless we know the very occasions 
for which they were severally composed, such, composi¬ 
tions, whether ancient or modern, whether in the Bible or 
out of it, are usually almost unintelligible. 

As the poets of the present day, and especially those 
of the class just described, may, and often do, express some 
opinion, some hope, or some fear, in regard to the future, 
and as this opinion, this hope, or this fear may prove to 
be correct, so it was with the poets or prophets of the Jews. 
They might, and often did, express some opinion, some 
hope, or some fear in regard to the future, and, occasion¬ 
ally, this opinion proved to be correct, this hope or this 
fear proved to be realized. In neither of these cases, 
however, have the compositions any claim to be regarded 
as the productions of seers or foretellers of future events. 
The meaning now almost universally applied to the word 
prophet, that of a foreteller of future events, is one of 
comparatively modern invention. The word prophet, 
therefore, with its present meaning, is no more applicable 
to the old poetic writers of the Bible, than is the word 
rascal, with its present meaning, to the apostles ; the word 
villain, with its present meaning, to the renters of land; 
or the word knave, with its present meaning, to boys of 
every description. 


478 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


When all of these facts are taken into consideration, 
the so-called prophetical writings of the Bible become 
simply so many jnmbled masses of incongruous words and 
ideas, scarcely worth reading, and certainly not worth 
either quarreling or fighting about. Before noticing in 
detail any of these so-called prophecies, I wish to remark 
that, with the present meaning of the word, there is not a 
single passage in the Bible, even though it may have been 
spoken or written by a so-called prophet, which can be 
properly called a prophecy, unless it contains a prediction 
of some future event. And even in this case, the event 
predicted must be such a one as is, in its nature, contin¬ 
gent or doubtful, such as the overthrow of a particular 
city by an earthquake, the desolation of a particular 
country, at a particular time, by some new and unheard of 
plague, etc. The prediction of the occurrence of day and 
night, of winter and summer, of eclipses, of transits of 
Venus, of the return of certain comets, and of other 
events which, in their nature, are not contingent or doubt¬ 
ful, does not constitute prophecy. When, however, the 
event predicted is, in its nature, contingent or doubtful, 
then that prediction, whether made by a professed 
prophet or not, is a genuine prophecy. Of such prophe¬ 
cies thousands are made every day, many of which are as 
valuable as are any to be found in the Bible. 

That there were pretended fortune-tellers or predicters 
of future events, among the Hebrews, just as there now 
are among ourselves, is undoubtedly true. These persons, 
however, were called seers and not prophets. They usually 
constituted a kind of vagrant or gypsy class, who preferred 
to live by their wit and not by their honest labor, and 
whose predictions were of no more value than are the 
similar predictions of the same class of persons of the 
present day. Of these seers, very few are mentioned in 
the Bible, and very few of their pretended predictions 
have reached our own times. 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


479 


The first prophecy or prediction of a future and con¬ 
tingent event to be found in the Bible is as follows : “ But 
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt 
not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die ” (Gen. ii, 17). Not as yet having any men 
whom he might* inspire to communicate this prophetic 
threat to Adam, God was compelled, by the force of cir¬ 
cumstances, to communicate it himself ; and this he did in 
language so plain that, by any one who had the slightest 
idea of death, it could not possibly be misunderstood. 

Of necessity, God must have intended, by means of this 
prophecy, to accomplish some object. But what was that 
object? Was it to prevent Adam from eating the fruit in 
question ? If it was, did not God utterly fail to accom- 
lish that object? And does he not here, at the very 
outset of his historical career, appear upon the stage as a 
very incompetent actor ? If this was not its object, will 
the champions of the Bible please inform us what that 
object was? Was it to excite Adam’s curiosity and thus 
get him to eat the fruit ? 

Let its object have been what it may, however, this 
prophecy was certainly never fulfilled. Adam did eat of 
the forbidden fruit, but he did not die on that very day, 
according to this prediction. He lived right on for nearly 
nine hundred and thirty years, and then died, as well he 
might, of pure old age. In this his first attempt, there¬ 
fore, to foretell future events, God made a miserable fail¬ 
ure ? And if he had not failed, if Adam actually had died 
on the very day in quesition, what possible good could 
have resulted from his premature death? Would its utter 
extinction, thus in its very infancy, have been of any bene¬ 
fit to the human race ? 

The next prophecy to be found in the Bible was, in like 
manner, communicated by God himself. This time it was 
communicated to the serpent, and was made entirely un¬ 
conditional: “Upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust 
shalt thou eat all the days of thy life” (Gen. iii, 14). 


480 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


The former part of this double prophecy may have been 
fulfilled. The serpent does go upon his belly all the days 
of his life. Previous to the passing of this prophetic 
sentence upon him, he was probably accustomed to crawl 
upon his back , to hop along upon his tail , or to take his tail 
in his mouth , and then roll along like a hoop . I know of no 
other modes of locomotion which his conformation would 
have enabled him then to practice, except the one which 
he now practices, that of going upon his belly. This latter 
method, however, he evidently did not then practice, for, 
if he was already accustomed to go in this manner, it 
would have been the height of absurdity to pretend to in¬ 
flict upon him, as a punishment, this mode of locomotion. 
As well might it have been said of man that he was pun¬ 
ished by being compelled to go upon his feet, when he had 
never been accustomed to go in any other manner. In the 
case of the serpent, the punishment could have consisted 
only in his being deprived of some more desirable mode- 
of locomotion, and being reduced to that of going upon 
his belly. But, with his conformation, what other method 
could ever have been more convenient, or more desirable? 
Wherein can there ever have been any change, or any puu- 
ishment in this matter ? Can the champions of the Bible 
inform us ? 

As to the latter part of this prophecy, it has certainly 
never been fulfilled. The serpent does not now, and never 
did, eat dust. And if, in order to fulfil this part of the , 
prophecy, he should conclude to reduce his extensive bill 
of fare to dust alone, what possible good, either to himself 
or to the human race, could result from this change ? As 
a prophet, does not God again stand before us a total 
failure ? 

The next prophecy of the Bible was also made by God 
himself; this time to Eve. “I will greatly multiply thy 
sorrow and thy conception ” (Gen. iii, 16). Since, as yet, 
Eve knew nothing about either sorrow or conception, how 
could she understand what God meant ? Was there, in 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE.. 


481 


Paradise, any sorrow at all previous to the passing of this 
sentence upon Eve? If not, what was’there of this ele¬ 
ment to multiply? Can multiplication be performed with¬ 
out a multiplicand? And if the multiplicand be nought, 
is not the product bound to be nought also? In order to 
have these things multiplied upon her, must not Eve have 
already had both sorrow and conception? Be this as it 
may, however, since we do not know how much of either 
sorrow or conception would have fallen to Eve’s lot, had 
these words never been spoken, we cannot, of course, 
know whether this prophecy has ever been fulfilled or not. 
If it has been, what good has resulted from that fulfil¬ 
ment? Has the human race been, in any way, benefited 
by an increase of sorrow? And as to an increase of con¬ 
ception, have not nine-tenths or more of all that have been 
conceived been damned? And is there any good in dam¬ 
nation? Most of these remarks and questions are also 
equally applicable to the prophecy made to Adam, imme¬ 
diately afterwards, in regard to thorns, thistles, labor, etc.? 
What good has resulted from any of these things? 

In Gen. xii, 15, 16, we have this remarkable prophetic 
promise made to Abraham: “For all the land which thou 
seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed forever. And 
I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a 
man can number the dust of the earth , then [and of course 
not otherwise] shall thy seed also be numbered .” These 
prophetic promises were never fulfilled. Abraham and 
his seed did not possess that land “forever.” Indeed, for 
more than two thousand years, they have not possessed 
any land at all. Besides this, they have never been, in 
number, “ as the dust of the earthy They have never been 
a very numerous people. Any schoolboy could always 
number them. 

In Gen. xv, 18, the extent of the land, thus prophetic¬ 
ally promised, is described : “Unto thy seed have I given 
this land, from the river of Egypt [the Nile,] unto the great 
river the river Euphratesy As here described, the land 


482 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


promised was never given at all. Tlie Hebrews never pos¬ 
sessed any land near “ the river of Egypt,” and very little, 
if any, near the Euphrates. And if these prophetic prom¬ 
ises had been fulfilled, how much better off would the 
world have been? 

In several other places, we find similar prophetic prom¬ 
ises, made either to individual Hebrews or to the whole 
Hebrew nation. None of these promises, however, were 
ever fulfilled ; and since they were all unwise, partial, and 
unjust, it is better for the world that they never were ful¬ 
filled. These promises, being unequivocal predictions of 
future and fortuitous events, constitute genuine prophe¬ 
cies—about the only ones, too, to be found in the whole 
Bible. Since, therefore, these have all failed, what can we 
expect of those that are conveyed to us in language so 
obscure that, after more than twenty-five hundred years 
spent in disputing about these things and in cutting one 
another’s throats, the doctors of divinity are as far as 
ever from agreeing in regard to their meaning ? 

A thousand different events have been fixed upon, by 
as many different champions of the Bible, as being each 
the fulfilment of the same prophecy. And, in many in¬ 
stances, any one of these events does answer as well as 
does any other the purpose of a fulfilment. These cases 
are similar to that over which three good old women are 
said to have fought in Pennsylvania. Having observed a 
certain phenomenon which they all held to indicate that 
there would be a death within a week, they were all on 
the qui vive for news of the expected death. From what 
she regarded as good authority, one of them learned that 
within the week, a man had died in New Orleans, and she, 
at once, set this down as the fulfilment of the sign. An¬ 
other, in the same way, learned that the sign had been 
fulfilled by the shuffling off of the mortal coil of a woman 
in New York. The third found the same satisfactory 
result in the untimely decease of a child in Saint Louis. 
The result was three separate fulfilments of the same 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


483 


sign, and a fearful tripartite fight among the good women 
when next they met. Had there been more women in the' 
party there would, undoubtedly, have been more fulfil¬ 
ments of the sign, and the interest of the inevitably result¬ 
ing fight would have been greatly augmented. So it is 
with many of the so-called prophecies of the Bible. Their 
extreme vagueness makes it very easy to claim that they 
have been fulfilled. When, however, w~e ask to have 
pointed out to us the fulfilment of a certain prophecy, we 
at once have placed before us as many fulfilments as there 
are different champions of the Bible. In order to sustain 
their absurd and pernicious religion, the Christians have 
fixed upon many of these vague prophecies, so-called, as> 
referring to Jesus. Some of these I will now notice. 

“ Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which 
was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a 
virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, 
[virgins never bring forth daughters], and they shall call 
his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted [from what, 
language, and into what language ?] is God with us *** 
(Matt, i, 22, 23). Not one of the New Testament writers 
ever quotes correctly any of the pretended prophecies of 
the Old Testament. Generally, however, we can manage' 
to find the passages which they pretend to quote. In this 
case, we find that Matthew pretends to quote Is. vii, 14, 
which says: “ Therefore the Lord himself shall give you. 
a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son* 
and shall call his name Immanuel.” 

There are few things that more clearly show the un¬ 
scrupulousness of the Christian priesthood than does; the.- 
effrontery with which they claim that this passage refers 
to Jesus. When we come to examine the circumstances 
under which the language of the passage was used, we see- 
clearly that it has no more reference to Jesus than it has. 
to yourself or to Balaam’s ass. The language is so clearly' 
inapplicable to Jesus that it never could have been.applied 
to him except by intentional fraud. 


484 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


At tlie time this languge was used, Ahaz, king of Judah, 
was greatly troubled because of the approach of the united 
forces of his enemies, the king of Israel and the king of 
Syria. Isaiah, therefore, pretending to be the Lord’s 
mouthpiece, as Balaam’s ass had been on a former occa¬ 
sion, undertook to encourage Ahaz by declaring that the 
two kings, whose approach so troubled him, should not 
prevail against him; and that, in a short time, their own 
kingdoms should be rendered desolate by the ravages of 
the king of Assyria. In order to make Ahaz believe these 
rather incredible declarations, Isaiah assured him that 
God would confirm them by a certain sign. Isaiah then 
proceeded to describe the sign as follows: “Behold, a 
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his 
name Immanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he 
may know to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For 
before the child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose 
the good, the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of 
both her kings” (Is. vii, 14^16.) 

The emergency that rendered a sign necessary being im¬ 
mediate, the sign itself, to be of any value, had to be 
immediate also. So far from being able to wait seven 
hundred and fifty years, as our priests would have us be¬ 
lieve that he was to wait, for Mary’s son to be a sign of 
the things predicted, Ahaz had to have a sign before the 
close of the war in which, at that very time, he was en¬ 
gaged. Without any delay, therefore, Isaiah proceeded 
to prepare the sign in question, which he himself had pro¬ 
posed. The Lord does not appear to have had anything 
to do in the matter. Isaiah thus describes his own manner 
of preparing this sign : “And I took unto me faithful wit¬ 
nesses to record, Uriah, the priest, and Zechariah, the son 
of Jeberechiah. And I went unto the prophetess [his 
own wife, not Mary] ; and she conceived [of her husband, 
not of a ghost], and bare a son. Then said the Lord to 
me, Call his name Maher-shalal-hash-baz. [Not Jesus.] 
For before the child shall have knowledge to cry, My 


THE PROPHECIES OP THE BIBLE. 485 

father, and my mother, the riches of Damascus, and the 
spoil of Samaria, shall be taken away before the king of 
Assyria” (Is. viii, 2-4). Jesus did not cry, My father and 
my mother, at all. He did not know his father, and did 
not acknowledge his mother. 

Having thus himself selected his own child to be a sign 
on this occasion, as he had doubtless himself selected his 
own other children, to be signs on former occasions, Isaiah 
boasts : “ Behold, I and the children whom the Lord hath 
given me [What had the Lord to do with them ? Did not 
Mrs. Isaiah give them ?] are for signs and for wonders in 
Israel from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount 
Zion.” [Did he dwell there ?] (Is. viii, 18.) 

From all this we learn that the famous virgin in ques¬ 
tion, who was to “be with child” and to “bear a son,” 
was no other than Mrs. Isaiah, the prophet’s own wife, 
who was already the mother of several children. We also 
learn that, like a sensible woman and a good wife, she con¬ 
ceived of her own husband , and not, as our priests would 

have us believe that a certain Miss Mary-did seven 

hundred and fifty years afterwards, of a rakish old bachelor 
ghost. In order that the world might be sure that no ghost 
had anything to do in this matter, Isaiah, as we have 
already seen, with commendable prudence, had two faith¬ 
ful witnesses present to see and to record that he himself 
begat the child in question. Had the rakish old bachelor 
ghost, who is said to have begotten Jesus, used similar 
precaution, and had had two faithful witnesses present to 
see and to record that he himself actually did beget Jesus, 
and that no man had anything to do in the matter, the 
world would be far more certain than they now are that 
Jesus was, indeed, the son of the said rakish old ghost. 

From this we see clearly that the only child to which, 
without gross perversion, the language in question can pos¬ 
sibly he made to refer, was begotten and born just as are 
all other children—begotten and born, too, seven hundred 
and fifty years before the birth of Jesus. Besides this, the 



486 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


child’s name was not Jesus. It was Maher-shalal-hash-baz. 
As to the fact of the child’s mother being a virgin, that 
amounts to nothing at all. Every Bible critic knows that, 
In ancient times, and especially among the Jews, the word 
virgin was not restricted, as it now usually is, to women 
who had not been sexually embraced by men, but was 
applied, indiscriminately, to all young and virtuous women , 
and even to men of this class, whether they were married or 
single, and whether they had, or had not, experienced the 
sexual embrace. It was only criminal or improper sexual 
intercourse that destroyed one’s virginity. The pure and 
proper sexual intercourse of the married state never did 
this. The loss of virginity, especially among the young, 
was always attended with the loss of purity and of inno¬ 
cence. A true wife—a good mother, was just as much a 
virgin as was any woman who had never sexually known 
man. Hence, although Isaiah’s wife had certainly known 
her husband, and was already the mother of several 
children, yet being a pure and innocent woman—being a 
true wife and still young, she was still a virgin, and was 
very properly spoken of as such. Indeed, it seems to me 
that her claim to virginity was far better than could have 

been that of Miss Mary-or any other woman who ever 

voluntarily became a mother without having first been a 
wife. In this, the original and only true sense of the term, 
every man who is born of a pure and innocent mother— 
of one who has ever been true to all the sacred obligations 
of matrimony, has a better right to claim that he is born 
of a virgin than had Jesus, who was begotten of an un¬ 
married father, and born of an unmarried mother. 

The case remains the same, too, even though, in their 
desperate attempt to shield his mother’s name from infamy, 
the followers of Jesus have set up the absurd claim that 
he was begotten by a ghost, or at least by the shadow of a 
ghost, and not by a man. Admitting the truth of this 
.absurd claim would not render the case any better for the 
woman. The holding of sexual intercourse—and without 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


487 


such intercourse no child can possibly be begotten—with 
a ghost, sufficiently substantial to get her with child, 
would just as surely and just as thoroughly sully an un¬ 
married woman’s purity, and destroy her virginity, as 
would the holding of similar intercourse with a living 
man. Indeed, I regard the ghost case as by far the worse 
one of the two. I profess to know a good deal about 
the nature of women, and I do not hesitate to say 
that any unmarried woman who, for the purpose of being 
made pregnant, or for any other purpose, would yield her 
body to the sexual embraces of a ghost, would, for the 
same purpose, just as promptly yield it to the similar em¬ 
braces of a living man. Indeed, I do not hesitate to say, 
too, that any unmarried woman would much sooner suffer 
herself to be sexually embraced by a man than by a ghost, 
if she were deeply in love with the man. I do not hesi¬ 
tate to say, further, that the woman who, following the 
strong impulses of her nature, yields her body before mar¬ 
riage to the sexual embraces, so natural, of the man whom 
she dearly loves, and whose wife she hopes yet to be, is 
more entitled to be regarded as still a virgin than would 
be the woman who would deliberately yield her body to 
the similar embraces, so unnatural, of a ghost, for whom 
she could entertain no feelings of love, and whose wife she 
could never hope, or even desire, to be. And the placing, 
by the priests, of the adjective holy before the name of 
either the man or the ghost does not, in the least, change 
the nature of the case. The nature and the propriety of 
the sexual act remain precisely the same. 

Be all this as it may, however, we now see clearly that 
this pretended prophecy of Jesus amounts to nothing more 
than the fact that, in order to encourage his king, Isaiah 
staked whatever reputation he may have had as a fortune¬ 
teller upon the result of the war in which, at that very 
time, the king was engaged. If, in this case, his fortune¬ 
telling should prove to be correct, then, before a child, 
which he himself proposed to immediately beget, could be 


488 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


born, and become able to say, “ My father, and my mother, ,r 
that is, within three years at most, Ahaz would see his two 
terrible enemies utterly overthrown. 

Unfortunately, however, for Ahaz and his people, as 
well as for Isaiah’s reputation as a fortune-teller, the sign 
utterly failed to signify the thing predicted. So far from 
being driven out of their own kingdoms, as Isaiah pre¬ 
dicted that they would be, those two kings beat Ahaz in a 
great battle, killed immense numbers of his soldiers, and 
carried away as captives still more immense numbers of 
women and children. These facts we learn from 2 Chron. 
xxviii, 1, 5, 6, 8 : “ Ahaz was twenty years old when he 
began to reign, and he reigned sixteen years in Jerusalem,, 
but he did not do that which was right in the sight of the 
Lord, like David his father. Wherefore the Lord his God 
delivered him into the hands of the king of Syria; and 
they smote him, and carried away a great multitude of 
them captives, and brought them to Damascus. And he 
was also delivered into the hand of the king of Israel, who* 
smote him with a great slaughter. For Pekah the son of 
Remaliah slew in Judah an hundred and twenty thousand 
in one day, which were all valiant men. And the children 
of Israel carried away captive of their brethren two hun¬ 
dred thousand, women, sons, and daughters, and took also 
away much spoil from them, and brought the spoil to 
Samaria.” 

The hundred and twenty thousand that Pekah slew in 
one day and the two hundred thousand that he crrried 
away, three hundred and twenty thousand in all, added to 
those that he may have killed on other days, and to the 
“ great multitude ” that were either killed or carried away 
by the king of Syria, doubtless made a grand total of over 
half a million of persons who were either killed or carried 
away as captives. This was truly a terrible punishment 
to inflict upon a very small nation of innocent people 
simply because their king “ did not that which was 
right in the sight of the Lord.” It was the custom, how- 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 489 

ever, of the God of the Bible, to thus punish the innocent 
for the offenses of the guilty. 

And this was the very war in which Ahaz was engaged 
at the time the so-called prophecy in question was spoken, 
the very war whose termination the old fortune-teller, 
Isaiah, pretended to predict, using as a sign thereof his 
own son, “ Maher-shalal-hash-baz,” who was born of his 
own wife, “ the prophetess,” whom he very properly called 
a “virgin.” We see, therefore, very clearly, that, so far 
from having any reference to Mary and her son, and to 
events seven hundred and fifty years in the future, the 
language in question had reference only to Mrs. Isaiah 
and her son, and to events which, at the furthest, were to 
occur within a very few months. We also see that Isaiah 
did not tell the fortune of Ahaz correctly; that every 
thing turned out exactly Contrary to his predictions. And 
thus crumbles to dust the main prophetic prop of that 
monstrous system of priestly imposition called the Chris¬ 
tian Religion. 

Under the circumstances with which he was surrounded, 
Ahaz could not have been otherwise than filled with in¬ 
tense anxiety, and overburdened with unavoidable cares. 
Messengers were constantly arriving with the most appall¬ 
ing intelligence. The two hostile kings were advancing, each 
one of them with forces far superior to his own ; and defeat 
at their hands involved, as he well knew, almost certain 
death or slavery to both himself and his people. All 
around him were uproar and confusion, and he, to whom 
all others looked for safety, was himself beginning to 
tremble under the fearful and well-founded panic that had 
seized upon his people. As Isaiah himself very forcibly 
expresses it, the king’s “ heart was moved, and the heart 
of his people, as the trees of the wood are moved with the 
wind.” To encourage him, therefore, under these pecul¬ 
iarly trying circumstances, Isaiah, who, with all his 
disgusting egotism, seems to have been a man of remark¬ 
able coolness and courage, staked his reputation as a 


490 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


fortune-teller upon the peculiarly unfortunate prediction 
which I have just described. 

The decidedly novel, serio-comic nature of that which he 
proposed as a sign that the war would terminate fortu¬ 
nately for Ahaz, clearly exhibits the peculiar coolness and 
hopefulness of Isaiah’s character. When all others were 
despairing of saving their own lives and those of their 
families, when every other man looked upon a prospective 
increase of children as a great misfortune to be carefully 
avoided, he substantially informed his terrified king that, 
for his own part, so far from yielding to despair, he pro¬ 
posed to go straight home to his wife and beget himself 
another child, in full confidence that God would so inter¬ 
pose in behalf of the people, of whom himself and 
his wife formed a part, that a child, as yet unbegotten, 
would live, not only to be born, but to be able to “ cry my 
father and my mother,” in full confidence, too, that, before 
it could cry these words, the two hostile kings in question 
would be utterly overthrown by their great enemy, the 
king of Assyria. 

This is substantially the story as related by Isaiah 
himself, and, when thus related, it is both natural and 
reasonable. When related, however, as our priests relate 
it, what could be more unnatural or more unreason¬ 
able? They would have us believe that, amid the general 
terror and confusion of the occasion, when the king was 
overburdened with business and anxiety, Isaiah, like an 
old idiot, instead of either aiding or encouraging him, 
began to prate to him about a young woman who, 
seven hundred and fifty years afterwards, was to be de¬ 
bauched by a ghost, and, as the result of this debauchery, 
was to bear a bastard baby. They would have us believe, 
too, that Isaiah proposed this monstrously absurd and 
indecent seven-hundred-and-fifty-year ghost baby affair as 
a sign by which Ahaz was to know what was to be the re¬ 
sult of the war in which, at that very time , he was engaged. 
While preaching this supremely ridiculous stuff, can two 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 491 

intelligent priests look each other in the face without 
laughing ? 

Admitting that Isaiah was sufficiently superstitious to 
believe that any such ghost affair was ever to occur, are 
we to understand that he was so far gone in idiocy as to 
approach the king, at this the most inopportune time pos¬ 
sible, and go to prating to him on such a subject? Would 
the king, at such a time, have listened, for a moment, to 
such nonsense ? Troubled as he was about the desperate 
affairs of his kingdom, would he have cared a fig who was 
to have a bastard baby so many centuries after his own 
time, or who was to be the baby’s putative father? Would 
he not have punished Isaiah for insulting him, at such a 
time, with trifling so silly ; or at least have told him to go 
to thunder—the Jews had no hell for such occasions—with 
his seven-hundred-and-fifty-year-old rake of a ghost and 
its bastard brats ? How would it fare now with an old 
fool who, amid the inevitably intense excitement preced¬ 
ing a great battle, should approach the commander-in-chief 
of one of the opposing armies, and go to prating to him 
so abominable a batch of balderdash ? 

Besides all these things, we learn, by reference to the 
story as told by Isaiah, that Ahaz was requested to ask of 
the Lord any sign he pleased in regard to the result of 
the war in which he was then engaged. We learn also 
that he refused to ask any sign at all, on the ground that 
to ask such a sign would be tempting the Lord. We learn 
further that it was only after the king’s refusal to ask a 
sign that Isaiah proceeded to propose and to prepare the 
sign which is described in the language that I have quoted. 
When the privilege of asking a sign was granted to Ahaz, 
there were many chances to one that he would avail him¬ 
self of that privilege and ask a sign. Had he done this, 
there is not one chance in many millions that he would 
have asked the sign that was finally given. And was the 
coming of Jesus, or the proofs of his identity and his di¬ 
vinity, left to one chance in many millions ? If some other 


492 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


sign, or if no sign at all, had been chosen on this occasion, 
would this particular sign ever have been prepared, would 
tljis particular child, whether he was Jesus or Maher- 
shalal-hash-baz, ever have been born at all ? 

After describing various circumstances, connected with 
the crucifixion of Jesus, John, xix, 36, says: “For these 
things were done that the scripture should be fulfilled, 
A bone of him shall not be broken.” Here we are grawely 
informed that the language concerning the bone had been 
used, prophetically, by some of the writers of the Bible, 
with reference to Jesus —that it was his bones that were 
not to be broken ; and that it was for the special purpose 
of fulfilling this prophecy, and of thereby condemning 
themselves, that the Jews refrained from breaking his 
bones, which, otherwise, they certainly would have broken. 

As originally used, however, the language in question 
has no more reference to Jesus and his bones than it has 
to you and your bones, or to Balaam’s ass and its bones. 
The language which John pretends to quote, but which, in 
fact, he grossly misquotes, is found in Ex. xii, 46, and, 
together with its context, reads as follows: u In one house 
shall it be eaten; thou shalt not carry forth aught of the 
flesh abroad out of the house: neither shall ye break a 
bone thereof.” This language, you perceive, is mandatory 
and not prophetic. It was spoken by Moses concerning 
the ram which, within a few days, every family of the He¬ 
brews were to kill, to dress, to roast, and to eat, at w T hat 
was called the feast of the Passover. As to Jesus , who did 
not live until some fifteen hundred years afterwards, and 
whom the Hebrews were never required, on the fourteenth 
day of the first month of every year, to kill, to dress, to 
roast, and to eat, “with unleavened bread and bitter 
herbs,” Moses does not seem to have even dreamed that 
any such person was ever to exist. By changing the gender 
of the pronoun, and both the mood and the tense of the 
verb, as well as the form of all the words but three, John 
has entirely changed both the construction and the mean- 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 493 

ing of the whole passage, and thus rendered his pretended 
quotation a monstrous imposition—an infamous forgery. 

No sane man will attempt to deny that all portions of 
the command in question refer to the same thing. If then, 
any portion of that command refers to Jesus , all the other 
p>ortions must refer to him also. By simply using the word 
Jesus , therefore, in the place of the word lamb , we have the 
whole command—the whole prophecy, if you wish to 
regard it as such, expressed according to the interpretation 
of it by John, and by the Christian priesthood generally. 
“ Your Jesus shall be without blemish, a male [neither a 
female lamb nor a female Jesus would have answered the 
purpose intended] of the first year ; [neither a lamb nor a 
Jesus more than a year old would have answered the pur¬ 
pose intended] ; ye shall take it out from the sheep or from 
the goats [Did Jesus ever run with the sheep or the 
goats ?] ; and ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day 
of the same month; and the whole assembly of the con¬ 
gregation of Israel shall kill it in the evening. [Was Jesus 
kept up so long before he was killed?] And they shall take 
of the blood, and strike it on the two side posts, and on 
the upper door post of the houses [Did they ever do this 
with the blood of Jesus?] wherein they shall eat it. [Did 
they ever eat Jesus?] And they shall eat the flesh in that 
night, roast with fire [did they ever roast Jesus?] and un¬ 
leavened bread; and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. 
A foreigner and a hired servant shall not eat thereof. 
[Were all hired servants, and all who were foreigners to 
the Jews, ever thus excluded from all participation 
in the benefits which Jesus was designed to confer upon 
the world?] In one house shall it be eaten; thou slialt not 
carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house; 
neither shall ye break a bone thereof.” And now, after 
thus carefully examining the scripture in question, are you 
prepared to swear that the bone mentioned therein was a 
bone of Jesus? And are you prepared to be eternally 


494 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


roasted in fire and brimstone if you cannot so swear—so 
believe ? 

Here are six verses, containing, in all, one hundred and 
forty-three words. In order to make the entire command, 
or so-called prophecy, apply to Jesus, as we certainly must 
if we make any portion of it apply to him, I have made 
but one change in all these words. John, however, does 
not wish to make any portion of this language apply to 
Jesus, except the last clause of the last verse ; and in order 
to make this clause, which contains only seven words, 
apply to Jesus, he makes eight changes: five in words, one 
in gender, one in mood, and one in tense. By these whole¬ 
sale changes, he undertakes to transform a plain command 
into a mystical prophecy , and the son of a common scrub 
ram into the son of an almighty God. Can any man be 
honest who knowingly helps carry out this monstrous im¬ 
position? Permit me to make eight changes for every 
seven words, and I can make a prophecy, concerning my¬ 
self, of any passage in the whole Bible—a much plainer 
prophecy too, than John has succeeded in making, con¬ 
cerning Jesus, of the passage which, as we have seen, he 
has so shamefully mutilated and distorted for the express 
purpose of making it apply to Jesus. 

In order to have had liis pretended prophecy satisfac¬ 
torily fulfilled, John, who was certainly never much 
troubled by conscientious scruples, should have had Jesus 
run with a flock of sheep or of goats until he was a year 
old. He should then have had him taken from the flock, 
on the tenth day of the first month, and kept up till the 
fourteenth day of the same month, and then killed, dressed, 
roasted, and eaten, “ with unleavened bread and bitter 
herbs,” in a house, and all this without carrying “ forth 
aught of his flesh abroad out of the house,” and without 
having “ a bone of him broken.” It is true that, in order 
to have done all of this, John would have had to have as 
many young Jesuses born every year as there were sepa¬ 
rate families in all Israel. With his wonderful skill 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


495 


however, in mutilating and distorting language, he should 
have been able to easily overcome this trifling difficulty. 
He should, at least, have tried to do so. He could not 
possibly have made the case any worse than he has made it. 

V__rThe writers of the New Testament do not seem to have 
been at all particular in regard to the passages that they 
fixed upon, in the Old Testament, as prophecies of Jesus. 
Whenever they wanted to weave such a prophecy into their 
absurd fabrications, they seem to have opened the Bible 
at random, taken the first passage that met their eye, and 
then shaped it to Suit their purpose. They seem to have 
been as careless in regard to passages of scripture as a 
certain traveler is said to have been in regard to the bones 
of a saint. Having been commissioned by a pious old 
aunt, whose heir he expected to be, to bring home to her 
from the Holy Land the bones of a saint, he proceeded to 
execute his commission by gathering up the first bones he 
found after entering that country. These happened to be 
the remains of a deceased ass, which, during its lifetime, 
had never been noted for anything of a saintly nature. 
The enterprising traveler, however, when duly informed 
of these facts, said they did not make the slightest differ¬ 
ence ; that by whittling the bones down a little, and then 
labeling them “ The bones of a saint,” he could make them 
answer his credulous old aunt’s purpose just as well as 
would the bones of a real saint, which, by the way, might 
be very hard to find. So it seems to have been with the 
writers of the New Testament. Not having been able to 
find in the Old Testament any real prophecies of Jesus, 
they seem to have gathered up, promiscuously, a number 
of passages relating to rams, to asses, etc., and, after whit¬ 
tling them down a little, to have piously labeled them 
“Prophecies of Jesus.” And, with the ignorant and the 
credulous, for whom alone the New Testament seems to 
have been written, these ram-and-ass counterfeit prophe¬ 
cies seem to have answered all the purposes of real proph- 


496 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ecies, just as the asinine remains of a counterfeit saint 
answered all the purposes of the remains of a real saint. 

Speaking of Joseph, Matt, ii, 14, 15, says: “ When he 
arose, he took the young child and his mother by night, 
and departed into Egypt: and was there until the death 
of Herod: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of 
the Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have 1 called 
my Son .” The language which Matthew here falsely pre¬ 
tends to quote is found in Hos. xi, 1, and is as follows: 
“ When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called 
[him] my son out of Egypt.” The “ son,” therefore, that 
was called out of Egypt, was “ Israel,” the whole Hebrew 
nation, and not Jesus. This fact is made still more clear 
by Ex. iv, 22, 23, which says: “And thou shalt say unto 
Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my 
first-born. And I say unto thee, Let my son go that he 
may serve me.” 

Speaking, as he does, of an event long since past, 
Hosea very properly uses the past or historical tense. 
Matthew, however, by quoting him in the perfect tense, 
attempts to mislead us in regard to the time at which the 
Lord called his son out of Egypt. By beginning the 
word son with a small letter, Hosea, shows clearly that 
he does not mean to apply this term to any form of the 
Deity. Matthew, however, by beginning the word with a 
capital, in his pretended quotation, attempts to mislead 
us into the belief that Hosea does mean to apply the term 
to some form of the Deity. And now, what are we to 
think of the honesty of Matthew, and, indeed, of all the 
other writers of the New Testament, who, for the express 
purpose of misleading the people into the belief of a false, 
absurd, and pernicious doctrine, thus habitually mutilate , 
distort , and thus give utterly false renderings of, all the lan¬ 
guage that they profess to quote ? And what are we to 
think of the honesty of our priests and other champions 
of the Bible who, after having frequently had clearly 
pointed out to them the undeniable dishonesty of these 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


497 


writers, still continue to make it tlieir trade to sustain the 
monstrous impositions which these unscrupulous writers 
have originated? 

From what I have now said, it is evident that, if the 
language in question has any reference at all to Jesus, he 
must have been the whole Hebrew nation. Certain cham¬ 
pions of the Bible, however, have set up the absurd claim 
that, in the loins of an ancestor of that generation, Jesus 
was actually called out of Egypt, on the occasion referred 
to by Hosea, together with the balance of the Hebrew na¬ 
tion; and that, consequently, the language in question 
does apply to him. If Jesus was a mere man, this claim 
may be well founded. In this case, however, by becoming 
equally applicable to every other Hebrew, this pretended 
prophecy ceases to be of any special benefit at all to Jesus. 
If, on the other hand, Jesus was a God, or the son of a 
God, then he could never have been in the loins of a hu¬ 
man ancestor, and, consequently, could not possibly have 
been called out of Egypt in the way just indicated. 

Besides this, if, in the time of Moses, God called his 
son out of Egypt, the language in question, being used 
long after that event, cannot possibly have anything pro¬ 
phetic about it. It is bound to be purely historical, and, 
hence, does not admit of any such thing as a fulfilment. 
Besides this, if, a dozen or more centuries before his birth, 
Jesus had already been called out of Egypt, why did he, 
after his birth, have to be taken down into Egypt, in order 
that, by being called out thence, he might fulfil this same 
scripture ? In order to fulfil this utterly useless scripture, 
did God have to call his son out of Egypt on two different 
occasions many centuries apart ? In thus attempting to 
palm off upon the world, as a prophecy of Jesus, this 
purely historical statement concerning the Hebrews, 
Matthew is again guilty of a monstrous imposition. Thus 
falls another of the principal prophetic props of priest¬ 
craft 


498 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


“ And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth: 
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the proph¬ 
ets, He shall he called a Nazarene ” (Matt, ii, 23). By using 
the word prophet in the plural number, Matthew evidently 
means to convey the idea that several of the prophets, 
referring to Jesus, had declared that “ he shall be called 
a Nazarene.” The truth of the matter, however, is that 
no such language is found at all in the Old Testament. In 
all the other cases, in which he pretends to make quota¬ 
tions from the Old Testament, Matthew so shamefully 
mutilates and distorts the language which he pretends to 
quote that it entirely loses the meaning given it by its 
author. In this case, however, he goes further and resorts 
to the manufacture of a downright falsehood—to the com¬ 
mission of one of the basest of forgeries. 

Admitting, however, that the language in question had 
been “ spoken by the prophets,” to what would it have 
amounted? Everyone that lived in Nazareth was “called 
a Nazarene.” The language, therefore, being equally ap¬ 
plicable to thousands of other men, would have been of 
no special service at all to Jesus. Anyone, in fact, even 
though he had not; been born in Nazareth, could have sat¬ 
isfied the only demand of this pretended prophecy—that 
of being “ called a Nazarene ”—by simply going to reside 
for a time at that city. In thus going to reside at Naza¬ 
reth, and thus bringing it about that himself was “ called 
a Nazarene,” Joseph satisfied the only demand of this 
supposititious prophecy in his own person just as well as he 
did in that of the infant Jesus, whom, for the express pur¬ 
pose of fulfilling this pretended prophecy, he is said to 
have taken with him to that city. 

It seems, indeed, that Joseph had selected, in the Bible, 
several passages which he could torture into seeming 
prophecies concerning some person, and that he had then 
set to work to bring about, in the person of Jesus, the 
apparent fulfilment of these fictitious prophecies. We 
have already seen that, for the express purpose of fulfill- 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


499 


ing one of these pretended prophecies, he took Jesus into 
Egypt and then brought him out again; and that, for the 
express purpose of fulfilling another one of them, he took 
Jesus to reside at Nazareth. But were these trivial events, 
thus purposely brought about, of so vast importance that 
the infinite power that rules the universe would have had 
them solemnly predicted many centuries before they were 
to occur? The very thought is blasphemy. Suppose that 
some other child had been carried down into Egypt, as he 
easily might have been, and then out again, and that he 
had been then taken, as he also easily might have been, to 
reside at Nazareth, and that he had been “ called a Naza- 
renesuppose that all these things had occurred to this 
other child before they occurred to Jesus, would not tho 
other child have been the one pointed out by the prophe¬ 
cies ? And if the one thus pointed out was to be the Son 
of God—the Savior of the world—would not the other 
child, and not Jesus, have been the Son of God—this 
Savior of the world ? Or suppose that, instead of all this, 
as might easily have happened, no child at all had been 
carried into Egypt and out again and then to Nazareth, 
what would have become of these pretended prophecies, 
and who would have been the Son of God ? 

In order to bring about the apparent fulfilment of the 
pretended prophecy concerning a virgin’s being with child, 
Joseph had simply to proceed himself to put the pre¬ 
tended virgin in the required condition, and then, by 
means of a simple dream—which, of course, he himself 
had to dream, and which, equally of course, he had to 
dream with his eyes wide open—to establish the fictitious 
fact that she was still a virgin. And could not any other 
man of ordinary virility and cunning have accomplished 
all of these things ? You know very well that he could. 
Suppose, then, that some other man had accomplished' 
them, with reference to some other child, before Joseph 
accomplished them, with reference to Jesus, to which set; 
of actors would the pretended prophecy have referred,, and 


500 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


who would have been the Son of God? That Joseph was, 
indeed, himself the father of Jesus is rendered more prob¬ 
able by the ease with which he was convinced that the 
child was of the Holy Ghost, and that Mary was still wor¬ 
thy to be his wife. Had he not been fully satisfied that 
the child was his own, a simple dream, even if it had been 
a real one, would hardly have convinced him of these 
things. 

^ Whether this part of the grand farce in question was 
deliberately enacted for the express purpose of meeting 
the requirements of the fictitious prophecy, which had 
already been prepared, or whether the fictitious prophecy 
was deliberately prepared for the express purpose of meet¬ 
ing the requirements of this part of the grand farce, which 
had already been enacted, we have no certain means of 
knowing. Be this as it may, however, there is no room 
for reasonable doubt that the one was deliberately pre¬ 
pared, or enacted, for the express purpose of meeting the 
requirements of the other. It seems far more likely, how¬ 
ever, that the fabrication of the fictitious prophecy was 
entirely an after-thought—a stratagem resorted to by 
Joseph and Mary, or by their friends, as a means of escape 
from a serious difficulty into which these two persons, like 
too many other imprudent lovers, had already unfortunately 
fallen. Indeed, the violence which, as we have already 
seen, was done to the scripture in question, in order to 
distort it into an apparent prophecy of Jesus, shows clearly 
that the one who thus distorted it was rendered utterly reck¬ 
less by something that drove him to desperation. 

Having thus prepared and then fulfilled this pretended 
prophecy, or, rather, having first fulfilled it and then pre¬ 
pared it, Joseph would have found no difficulty either in 
the preparing or the fulfilling of those other fictitious 
prophecies concerning the calling of some one out of 
Egypt, and the calling of him a Nazarene. If Joseph 
really did perform the acts attributed to him by Matthew, 
then he certainly performed them, as Matthew says he did, 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE.. 501 

for the express purpose of fulfilling these fictitious 
prophecies. If he did not perform them, then it is clear 
that the unscrupulous Matthew himself manufactured both 
the pretended prophecies and their pretended fulfilments. 
The champions of the Bible, therefore, may choose which¬ 
ever horn they will of this dilemma. 

As I have already said, there is no such language in 
the Old Testament as that which Matthew pretends to 
quote concerning some one’s being “ called a Nazarene.” 
The language to which he evidently refers, and upon 
which, like a low punster, he plays, is found in Jud. xiii, 5, 
and reads as follows: “For lo, thou shalt conceive, and 
bear a son [the birth of a daughter is never predicted], 
and no razor shall come on his head; for the child shall 
be a Nazarite unto God from the womb.” This language 
was spoken, not to Mary, concerning her son Jesus, but, 
nearly twelve hundred years before her time, to the wife 
of Manoah, concerning her son Samson. This passage, 
too, declares that the child in question shall actually “be 
a Nazarite unto God from the womb,” and not, as the vil¬ 
lainous mutilator Matthew has it, that he shall merely 
“ be called a Nazarene,” from the time that he became an 
inhabitant of Nazareth. Could a man, under any circum¬ 
stances, have been a “ Nazarene ” unto God ? 

Although the words Nazarene and Nazarite are some¬ 
what similar in form, their similarity is entirely accidental, 
just as is that of the words bismuth and Bismarck, or of the 
words whiskey and whisker. Their similarity of form arises 
from no similarity of meaning. In their signification, they 
are no more similar than are the words Londoner and 
Freemason. Indeed, the word Nazarene does bear to the 
word Nazarite exactly the same relation that the word 
Londoner bears to the word Freemason. As a Londoner 
is simply an inhabitant of London, so a Nazarene was 
simply an inhabitant of Nazareth. With a Nazarite, how¬ 
ever, the case was quite different. As does a Freemason 
now, so did a Nazarite then, take his appellation from his 


502 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


connection with a certain fraternity; or from his being 
bound by certain oaths or tows to observe certain regula¬ 
tions, and to perform certain duties not required of other 
men. 

In regard to his mode of living, a Nazarene was under 
no more restrictions than were the inhabitants of any other 
Jewish cities. A Nazarite, however, on the contrary, was 
bound to let his hair grow without cutting, and to abstain 
from the use of all luxuries, such as wine, vinegar, and 
grapes. Samson, Samuel, and John the Baptist are all 
the Nazarites that I find mentioned in the Bible. Being 
an inhabitant of Nazareth, Jesus was, very properly, called 
a Nazarene. He was not a Nazarene ‘‘from the womb,” 
however, and hence, even if the words Nazarene and Naza¬ 
rite were synonymous, Jesus would not have met the 
requirements of the pretended prophecy in question. So 
far from being a Nazarite, Jesus indulged in the use of 
wine and other luxuries to such an extent that, when they 
beheld him approach, the people were wont to exclaim, 
Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber.” 

Besides this, as there could have been no such thing as 
a Londoner before there was any such city or place as 
London, so there could have been no such thing as a 
Nazarene before there was any such city or place as Naza¬ 
reth. It is evident, therefore, that, since, at the time the 
language in question was used, there was no such city or 
place as Nazareth, the language could not have had any 
reference to any such city or place, or to any of its inhab¬ 
itants. In other words, the language could not have been 
used with reference to Jesus, an inhabitant of Nazareth. 

On all hands, it is admitted that the pun—the mere 
play upon words that are somewhat similar in form, but 
entirely dissimilar in sense—is the lowest of all kinds of 
wit. It is generally disgusting even when used by a pro¬ 
fessed humorist in regard to trivial matters. It becomes 
utterly unbearable when used by a professed historian in 
regard to serious matters. And, when used in regard to a 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


503 


sacred matter by one who professes to speak under inspira¬ 
tion of God, it becomes shockingly blasphemous. In 
resorting to this mere play upon words, therefore, Matthew, 
who, by the champions of the Bible, is claimed to be an 
inspired writer, stands before us, not only in the unen¬ 
viable character of a punster—a low wit or wag—but also 
in that of a shocking blasphemer. In no possible view of 
the case can his conduct be defended, or his pretended 
prophecy be made a real one. 

In John xii, 14,15, we read: “ And Jesus, when he had 
found a young ass, sat thereon [how much more like a 
naughty schoolboy he acted than like the infinite power 
that rules the universe] ; as it is written, Fear not, daughter 
of Sion; behold thy king cometh sitting upon an ass’s 
colt.” Admitting that the passage which John here pre¬ 
tends to quote really is a prohecy, and that it was fulfilled 
by Jesus on the occasion in question, of what value to the 
world has either the prophecy or its fulfilment ever been ? 
Had the same feat of ass-manship been performed by a 
common schoolboy, would it not have been equally bene¬ 
ficial to the world ? Could not anyone capable of riding 
an ass have fulfilled this pretended prophecy just as well 
as Jesus fulfilled it ? 

Dealing in twos, as he almost invariably does, Matthew 
gives quite a different account of this affair. He also gives 
quite a different quotation of the scripture of which this 
ass-riding exploit is claimed to have been a fulfilment. 
Instead of having Jesus himself thus find one ass and 
mount it himself, Matt, xxi, 1-7, has him send two of his 
disciples to steal two asses, has his disciples place him 
upon these two asses, and has him ride them both at once 
into Jerusalem. Did Jesus, by this ridiculous perform¬ 
ance, ignorantly fulfill the pretended prohecy in question, 
or did he know of the pretended prophecy, and accomplish 
this performance for the express purpose of seeming to 
fulfill it? If he did it ignorantly, could he have been a 
God ? If he did it knowingly, was there anything wonder- 


504 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ful in liis performance ? Could not any clown, who might 
have known of the pretended prophecy, have seemed to 
fulfil it as well as Jesus did ? Was Jesus the only man in 
Judea that could ride two asses at once ? 

What a figure Jesus must have cut, riding thus upon 
two asses at once into Jerusalem, and followed by a yell¬ 
ing mob of admiring vagrants! Picture to yourselves the 
President of the United States riding thus into Washing¬ 
ton, the Prince of Wales riding thus into London, or the 
Emperor of Germany riding thus into Berlin! Is not the 
very thought of such a jackassical performance by one of 
these grand personages too ridiculous to be fully ex¬ 
pressed ? Is it not blasphemy, then, of the most shocking 
kind, to charge the Almighty himself with having accom¬ 
plished this supremely ridiculous performance—with 
having accomplished it, too, simply because it was sup¬ 
posed that somebody, many centuries before, had predicted 
that some one would be fool enough to perform this worse 
than nonsensical feat ? In such a case, would not the ass¬ 
riding God have been himself the greatest ass of all ? 

When, for a moment, you have seriously considered 
these things, are you sure that, because of your belief iD 
them, you are any more fit for heaven, or any more likely 
to attain it, than are those whose intelligence and whose 
reverence for God are so great that they are unable to be¬ 
lieve any such things ? Por my own part, I cannot believe 
so meanly of the Almighty—whoever or whatever he may 
be—as to even suspect that he ever thus assumed the form 
of a man and the character of a clown, and engaged in a 
performance so unspeakably ridiculous. And am I to be 
eternally damned for my inability to think meanly of God 
in this case ? Is not God the infinite power that rules the 
universe ? If so, who was ruling the universe while this 
infinite power was thus amusing itself, and its vagrant 
companions, riding those two asses ? 

You may claim that it was not the Almighty himself— 
not the entirety of the infinite power that rules the 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


505 


universe that performed the supremely ridiculous jack- 
assical feat just described. You may claim that this feat 
was performed by the son, the nephew, or some other near 
family relative of the infinite power in question. But 
what proof have you that this power ever had any son, 
any nephew, or any other near family relative ? And if 
you have any such proof, then will you please explain how 
this relative, or these relatives, came to have the human 
form when the great power itself had no form at all? And 
what kind of family government must this person have 
had, if it permitted its son, or any other member of its 
family, to go strolling about the country thus, with a band 
of rowdies and vagrants, catching up without leave and 
riding other people’s asses, and doing other things of a 
disorderly nature ? You might just as well charge these 
unbecoming acts to God himself—to the infinite power 
that rules the universe—as to attack the family govern¬ 
ment of that power by charging them to any member of 
its family. For my own part, I have too much confidence 
in the dignity and self-respect of the Almighty—of the in¬ 
finitely great and glorious power in question—to believe 
that it ever permitted any of its sons, its nephews, or 
other young relatives—any of its young Almighties— 
any of its young infinite powers, to thus play both the thief 
and the clown by stealing asses and riding them two at a 
time. Admitting, however, that God did inspire some one 
to advertise, by what is called a prophecy, that he, or his 
son, or some other member of his family, would come 
along after a while, playing the clown in a two-ass circus, 
and, admitting, too, that the circus did actually come 
along as advertised, is the world any better off either for 
the advertisement or for the coming of the circus ? Who 
dare say that it is ? 

The scripture to which Matthew and John both refer, 
and which they both shamefully misquote, is found in 
Zech. ix, 9, and reads as follows: “Rejoice greatly, O 
daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem ; behold, 


506 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


thy king cometh unto thee; he is just, and having salva¬ 
tion ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the 
foal of an ass.” Who it was that came to Jerusalem as a 
king riding thus “ upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal 
of an ass,” I do not pretend to know. He was evidently 
some one, however, that the people recognized as their 
king—some one that was just returning from captivity in 
Babylon—some one that all Jerusalem rejoiced to welcome 
home. In none of these respects did Jesus answer the 
description of the person to whom this language refers. 
Besides this, according to the accepted chronology of the 
Bible, the events here described occurred some sixty-seven 
years before they were thus recorded by Zechariali. It is 
evident, therefore, that, since it was written concerning 
past events, the language in question is bound to be his¬ 
torical, and cannot possibly have anything prophetic about 
it. It does not matter, then, to whom, or to what, this 
language refers. Since it does not refer to anybody or to 
anything in the future, it certainly cannot, refer to Jesus, 
who was still many centuries in the future, or to any of 
the events of his time. 

I have now fully and fairly examined five of the most 
important of the so-called prophecies of Jesus, and have 
clearly proved that not one of them refers, even in the 
slightest degree, to him, or to anything of the time in 
which he lived. I have clearly proved that they all refer 
to matters which were either past or present at the time 
they were written; to matters, too, which were of no in¬ 
terest whatever to anybody but the Jews themselves. I 
have also clearly proved that, even if these passages had 
been prophetical, they are of such a nature that almost 
anyone who may have been born of a pretended virgin, 
and who may have seen fit to make a visit to Egypt, to go 
to live at Nazareth, to ride two asses at once into Jeru¬ 
salem, etc, could have fulfilled them as well as did Jesus, 
and could thus have had the same proof that he was the Son 
of God that Jesus now has. I have clearly proved, further, 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


507 


that, whether fulfilled or unfulfilled, none of these so-called 
prophecies are of a nature to be of any value to anyone 
except the priests. Were it necessary, I could also easily 
prove all these same things in regard to all the other pre¬ 
tended prophecies of Jesus. Not one of them can bear 
the test of fair investigation. I will now briefly notice a 
few of the many prophecies of the New Testament, and 
then close this already long lecture. 

In the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew, Jesus is 
made to predict two very important events, the destruction 
of Jerusalem, and the coming of Christ to judgment. 
Each of these grand events is described as being made 
up of many minor events; and each, pertaining as it does 
to the future, constitutes a genuine prophecy. That is, 
the writer, whoever he was, represents Jesus as making a 
genuine, but rather unsuccessful attempt to guess what 
events are to occur in the future. 

I have said that both of the events in question per¬ 
tained to the future. This is true so far as concerns Jesus, 
who is supposed to have uttered the predictions in ques¬ 
tion concerning them. The book of Matthew, however, 
was not written till after the destruction of Jerusalem. 
The writer of that book, then, of whose name and whose 
character for honesty we know nothing, knew, at the time 
he wrote these prophecies, just what were the real circum¬ 
stances attending the destruction of Jerusalem. It was 
but natural, therefore, that, writing as he did for the 
express purpose of sustaining the claims of Jesus to be a 
divine personage, he would put into the mouth of his 
hero just such words as he knew would have constituted a 
correct prophecy of those events had they been actually 
spoken before the events occurred. To have put false 
prophecies concerning these now well-known events into 
the mouth of Jesus, or even to have left such prophecies 
uncorrected had Jesus actually spoken them, would have 
been to expose Jesus as an impostor, and to thus defeat 
the very purpose for which the author of Matthew wrote. 


508 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

We would naturally expect, therefore, that this pre¬ 
tended prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem 
would be found to correspond very nearly with the cir¬ 
cumstances of that event as they actually did occur. And 
such w’e find to be indeed the case. It is clear, however, 
that this apparent fulfilment of this ex post facto produc¬ 
tion, this undeniably counterfeit prophecy, amounts to 
nothing at all. I could now write what, had it been spoken 
previous to the event, would have been a correct prophecy 
concerning the late civil war in America, and, by putting 
these my own words into the mouth of some one who lived 
long ago, I could have made just as remarkable a prophecy 
concerning this war, and one just as literally fulfilled, as is 
that which the author of Matthew has put into the mouth 
of Jesus concerning the destruction of Jerusalem. I could 
make such an ex post facto prophecy succeed, too, among 
the people, as well as he made his succeed, if I could have 
mine sustained, as his has always been, by the sword, the 
dungeon, the rack, and the stake. Thus much for about 
the only prophecy in the Bible that seems ever to have 
been fulfilled. 

After giving what he pretends to be a prophetic de¬ 
scription of the destruction of Jerusalem, the author of 
Matthew, still putting his own words into the mouth of 
Jesus, says : “ Immediately after the tribulation of these 
days, shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not 
give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and 
the powers of the heavens [the solid sky or firmament 
which was formerly supposed to rest, like an inverted 
bowl, over the earth, and into which the heavenly bodies 
were all set to keep them from falling] shall be shaken: 
And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in 
heaven : and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, 
and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of 
heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send 
his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall 
gather together his elect from the four winds, from one 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


509 


end of heaven, to the other. . . . Verily I say unto 
you, This generation shall not pass till all these things be 
fulfilled ” (Matt, xxiv, 29-34). 

You will notice that all the things here predicted were 
to occur “immediately after the tribulation” which was 
to accompany the destruction of Jerusalem, and while 
some of the generation to which Jesus belonged were still 
living. But none of these events did occur then or at any 
later period; and, from their very nature, most of them 
never can, and, consequently, never will, occur at all. Why, 
then, you may ask, did not the author of Matthew make 
the prophecy concerning these things correct in the mouth 
of Jesus as he made that concerning the destruction of 
Jerusalem? The reason is very obvious. As we have 
already seen, the author knew the events, already past, 
which were connected with the destruction of Jerusalem. 
In regard to these events, therefore, he had nothing to do 
but to throw back into the mouth of Jesus such a descrip¬ 
tion of them as would correspond with the events them¬ 
selves as he knew that they had actually occurred. In 
regard to the events connected with the coming of the Son 
of man to judgment, on the contrary, the author knew 
nothing about them. In regard to these events, therefore, 
he had to construct, and put into the mouth of Jesus, a 
prediction composed of a popular superstition of liis own 
time, embellished somewhat with material drawn from his 
own imagination. Since the things predicted were never 
to occur at all, the only way to have corrected the predic¬ 
tion concerning them would have been to omit it entirely, 
and this our author would doubtless have done, had he 
known, as we now know, that none of these things would 
ever occur. From the best authority we have on the sub¬ 
ject, however, he wrote soon after the destruction of Jeru¬ 
salem, and while all these events were still confidently 
expected soon to occur. 

From all this, it is evident that, while the author was 
able to put into the mouth of Jesus a correct prediction 


510 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


concerning the destruction of Jerusalem, which had 
already occurred, he was not able to do the same concern¬ 
ing the darkening of the sun, the falling of the stars, etc., 
which had not yet occurred, and which we now know never 
were to occur. In regard to these latter events, he did the 
best he possibly could do. He put into the mouth of 
Jesus, his own opinions, and the prevailing opinions or 
superstitions of his own time. If he had known anything 
of the science of astronomy, he would hardly have made 
Jesus predict the falling of the stars, the shaking of the 
heavens, etc., which were certainly never to occur at all. 
And now, since this latter prediction is certainly a false 
one, I leave the champions of the Bible to say whether 
it was manufactured by Matthew, and dishonestly put by 
him into the mouth of Jesus, or whether Jesus did actu¬ 
ally make it himself, and thus prove himself to be an 
ignoramus and an impostor. Take whichever horn they 
may of this dilemma, the cause of these champions is 
lost. 

Mark, who wrote about the same time with Matthew, 
committed the same error of having Jesus place the day 
of judgment immediately after the destruction of Jerusa¬ 
lem. We account for his error in the same way that we 
account for that of Matthew. Neither one of them knew 
what he was writing about. Luke, who wrote several 
years later, seeing that these things did not occur “ imme¬ 
diately after the tribulation of those days ” in which 
occurred the destruction of Jerusalem, and not having any 
idea as to when they would occur, but still believing that 
they would yet occur at some time in the future, has Jesus 
predict them, but has him leave the time of their occur¬ 
rence indefinite. John, who wrote many years later still, 
having doubtless come to the conclusion that no such 
events were ever*to occur at all, very wisely permits Jesus 
to say nothing at all about them. So much for the most 
important of all the so-called prophecies of the New Tes¬ 
tament. 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


511 


“ But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by 
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against 
the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men. . . . 
But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night: 
in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great 
noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat; the 
earth also, and the works that are therein, shall be burnt 
up. Seeing then that these things shall be dissolved, 
what manner of persons ought ye to be in all holy conver¬ 
sation and godliness; looking for and hasting unto the 
coming of the day of God, wherein the heavens, being on 
fire, shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with 
fervent heat?” (2 Pet. iii, 7-12). 

From the fact that Peter exhorted the people of his 
own time to be on the lookout for the day of judgment, 
and to be prepared for its coming, it is evident that he, 
like most of the other Christians of his time, believed 
that this day was near at hand. Indeed, his language sim¬ 
ply conveys, in other and more explicit words, the same 
prophecy which, as put by Matthew, Mark, and Luke into 
the mouth of Jesus, we have just been considering. In 
fact, nearly all the prophecies of the New Testament have 
some reference to the day of judgment—the end of the 
world, or rather of the universe—which, as I have just 
stated, was then commonly supposed to be near at hand. 

In this prophecy, as here set forth by Peter, we find 
several errors in science, which mark the prophecy 
as the mere guess-work of an ignorant and unin¬ 
spired man; which make it absolutely certain, too, 
that the prophecy will never be fulfilled. In the first 
place, Peter declares that “ the heavens shall pass away 
with a great noise .” It is now a well-established fact of 
science that noise or sound essentially consists in vibrations , 
of certain degrees of rapidity, in the atmosphere; and 
that, consequently, no sound can pass through a vacuum 
or space unoccupied by atmosphere. In order, then, by 
their abrupt departure, to produce “ a great noise" Peter’s 


512 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


“heavens” would have to be within the atmosphere that 
surrounds our earth—within ten miles of the earth’s sur¬ 
face, there not being sufficient atmosphere beyond that 
distance to transmit “ a great noise ” of any kind. Besides 
this, in order to produce the vibrations necessary to sound 
in our atmosphere, those heavens would, of necessity, have 
to be of a material or substantial nature , such as they [the 
heavens or firmament] were supposed to be by the writers 
of the Bible. But are there any such material heavens 
within so short a distance from the earth’s surface ? If 
not, then it is certain that this prophecy can never be ful¬ 
filled. 

In the second place, Peter errs in teaching that all the 
bodies of the universe are to be dissolved at the same time. 
It is now a well established fact of science that, as it would 
be utterly impossible for all the water of the earth to exist, 
at any one time, in the form of vapor, in its chaotic condi¬ 
tion, in our atmosphere, so it would be equally impossible 
for all the matter of the universe to exist, at any one time, 
in a vapory, chaotic, or “ dissolved ” condition ; that, at all 
times, space is very nearly saturated with matter in that 
condition, and that, consequently, as fast as more matter, 
from the dissolution of old worlds, enters into that condi¬ 
tion, space, becoming over-saturated with matter in that 
form, is bound to condense a portion uf it into new worlds. 
It is evident, therefore, that at all times throughout the 
entire universe, formation and dissolution, action and re¬ 
action, must ever continue to be, as they ever have been, 
exactly equal to each other ; and that this prophecy which, 
at a certain time, requires all dissolution and no formation, 
all action and no reaction, can never possibly be fulfilled. 

In the third place, Peter errs in teaching that the dis¬ 
solution of the earth, and of all the other bodies of the 
universe, is to be instantaneous. This error is the counter¬ 
part of that other error of the Bible by which the 
formation of the earth, and of all the other bodies of the 
universe, is made to be instantaneous; to be the immediate 


THE PROPHECIES OF THE BIBLE. 


513 


effect of the speaking of certain magical words by the 
Almighty Elohim. It is now a* well established fact of 
science that both the dissolution of old worlds and the 
formation of new ones are going on as fast as they can go, 
all the time ; and that the dissolving of an old world, or 
the forming of a new one, is a process that requires for its 
completion countless millions of ages. It is evident, there¬ 
fore, that this prophecy, which requires the process of the 
dissolution of all the bodies of the universe to be instan¬ 
taneous, can never be fulfilled. 

Finally, Peter errs in teaching that all the bodies of 
the universe are to be “ burned up or dissolved . . . with 
fervent heat” The very reverse of this is true. It is now 
a well established fact of science that all worlds have their 
birth or formation in the igneous condition , in “ fervent heat” 
that all burning worlds are new worlds, still in ' process of 
formation. It is also an equally well established fact of 
science, though one not so generally known, that all worlds 
die, or have their dissolution, in the opposite extreme of in¬ 
conceivable cold ; that all cold worlds are old worlds already 
in process of dissolution . It is evident, therefore, that this 
prophecy, which requires the reversal of the conditions 
upon which depend the formation and the dissolution of 
worlds, can never possibly be fulfilled. In a future course 
of lectures/entitled “The Universe Analyzed,” I will fully 
demonstrate all these facts of science. For the present 
these remarks must suffice. 

“ And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a 
fig-tree castetli her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a 
mighty wind. And the heavens departed as a scroll when 
it is rolled together” (Rev. vi, 13, 14). This is simply a 
repetition of the prophecy which we have been considering 
concerning the destruction of the universe. Here, how¬ 
ever, in imagination, picturing to himself the fearfully 
sublime scene of that expected destruction, the author, in 
really beautiful language, describes it as passing before 
his eyes. Rut here, too, as before, we find the jirophecy 


514 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


founded in ignorance, and involving errors which render 
its fulfilment utterly impossible. It requires all the stars 
to be small objects, stuck like nails into the under side of 
a solid framework or firmament which was supposed to 
rest like an inverted bowl over the earth. It also requires 
all these little stars to be capable of being shaken out of 
this their supporting frame-work, and made to come rat¬ 
tling down, like so many figs, upon the earth. Finally, it 
requires the heaven itself, or sky, to be a solid substance 
like plate metal of some kind, something capable of re¬ 
maining and standing alone, after all the stars have been 
shaken out of it; something capable of being then rolled 
together as a scroll and taken away. Since it is utterly 
impossible for these absolutely necessary conditions ever 
to exist, it is evidently utterly impossible for the prophecy 
ever to be fulfilled. And so of all the other prophecies or 
fortune-tellings of the New Testament. They are all 
founded in error, and hence can none of them ever be ful¬ 
filled. 

I have now fully and fairly analyzed and exposed many 
of the most important prophecies, or pretended prophecies, 
of the whole Bible. I have shown that very few of them 
are real prophecies at all; that of those which are real 
prophecies, very few ever have been or ever can be ful¬ 
filled ; that the very few which seem to have been fulfilled, 
were written after the occurrence of the events claimed to 
be their fulfilment, and that, whether fulfilled or unfulfilled, 
none of these prophecies ever have been, or ever can be, 
of any service to the world. And thus fall all the pro¬ 
phetic props of priestcraft. Not one of them can bear 
the test of fair examination. 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OE THE BIBLE. 


515 


LECTURE FIFTEENTH 

THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 

A belief in the real -existence of a personal devil was 
almost universal. Now, however, that belief is confined 
almost exclusively to the ignorant. By the intelligent, it 
is generally rejected. Almost the entire Christian priest¬ 
hood, however, notwithstanding their own utter unbelief 
in the existence of any such being, still persist in using his 
sooty, split-footed, spear-tailed, sulphuric majesty, the 
devil, as a convenient bug-aboo with which to scare the 
ignorant masses, upon whom they principally depend for 
their support, and thus make them better priest-paying 
instruments. When I see the extent to which this ex¬ 
tremely dishonest practice is carried, and the fearfully 
pernicious effect which it has upon the people, I feel that 
I would not have performed my full duty, as a defender of 
truth and humanity, were I to leave this strong prop of 
priestcraft still standing—were I not to expose the utterly 
mythical nature of this purely priest-invented being, the 
devil. 

The idea of a personal devil seems to be entirely of 
gentile origin. In the Jewish system of theology, there 
seems never to have been any such personage. This was 
certainly true till after the Babylonish captivity, during 
which the Jews adopted many of the religious ideas, insti¬ 
tutions, and myths of their gentile masters. Even at the 
present time, few Jews claim the devil as an element in 
their system of religion. 


516 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


So far as I now know, however, all gentile nations have 
had their bad gods or devils, and these, by keeping up a 
constant warfare against the good gods, have always pre¬ 
vented these latter personages from accomplishing much 
good to the human race. The success of these enterprising 
devils has been truly wonderful. Except, occasionally, 
when outwitted by their inventors, the priests, they seem 
never to have failed in any of their undertakings. Un¬ 
aided by an army of priests, no god seems ever to have 
been able to cope with one of these energetic gentlemen of 
the split-hoof and the spear-shaped tail. 

Most pagan nations have made their devils or bad gods 
self-existent. In this way, they have entirely relieved their 
good gods of all responsibily for either the objectionable 
existence or the wicked actions of the devils. The 
■Christians, however, by absurdly making their devil a 
mere creature, made, supported and controlled by their 
Jehovah or so-called good God, leave this latter personage 
just as much responsible for all evil as he would have been 
had no devil ever been invented at all. The doctrine of 
devils is an essentially polytheistic doctrine, and never can 
be made to harmonize with the strictly monotheistic 
religion of the Jews. 

Having in a former lecture already fully explained how 
the idea of devils, as well as that of all other gods, origi¬ 
nated, I will, in this lecture, omit any notice of that matter, 
and, at once, proceed to show that the devils are all absurd 
pagan myths of no possible advantage to anybody but the 
priests. I will also show that the Bible gives its principal 
devil, Beelzebub, a much better moral character than it 
gives your adopted God, who, of old, was simply the 
tutelary divinity of the Hebrew nation alone. 

As to when the devil or Satan of the Bible was made, 
I shall not now stop to inquire. Neither will I stop to in¬ 
quire of what kind of material he was made, or how long 
it took to make him. Suffice it to say that he was made 
by God, who still sustains him, and who, consequently, is, 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 517 

indirectly, responsible for all tlie evil ever produced by 
the devil. 

It is true that some of the champions of the Bible teach 
that, when he first emerged from God’s workshop, the devil 
was a good and respectable being, fit to dwell in heaven 
and to be accepted as a member of heaven’s highest circle 
of society. For the truth of this teaching, however, there 
is not a particle of proof. Besides this, the teaching is, 
in itself, extremely absurd. If the devil was ever thus a good 
and perfect being, and if there was never any other devil or 
source of evil to render him otherwise, he must, of neces¬ 
sity, have always remained thus good and perfect. How, 
then, did he manage to become so evil and so imperfect as 
the champions of the Bible would have us believe that he 
now is ? Were not all the elements that enter into his 
composition derived directly from God himself? If not, 
from what other source were they derived? Besides this, 
w^ould a good and perfect being have answered any of the 
purposes for which a devil was needed? Could he ever 
have stood as the author of all evil? And was there any¬ 
one but God himself who had power to change a being 
thus good and perfect into one utterly evil and imperfect ? 
And if God did himself make this change, was he not him¬ 
self undeniably the original source of all evil ? Might not 
the champions of the Bible, therefore, just as well have 
God make the devil evil at once, and be done with it, or 
even have him perform all evil himself without any devil 
at all, as to have him make the devil good at first and then 
change him to evil? 

Having made the great arch-devil, Satan or Beelzebub 
and many legions of subordinate devils, God found it nec¬ 
essary, so our priests inform us, to prepare for them a 
suitable place of abode. At any rate, according to the 
testimony of these priests, such a place was prepared, and 
a Ml-of-a-place it was. As to where it was located, how¬ 
ever, we have never been informed. Of course, our priests 
all know exactly where it is. This knowledge, however. 


518 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


they carefully conceal from all others. Their reason for 
so wonderful a reticence, on so important a subject, is very 
obvious. It is only the fear of hell that makes men will¬ 
ing to pay for the services of priests. Remove that fear 
and the trade of the priests would be forever gone. They 
would nevermore be able to live, as now they live, upon 
the unrequited labor of others. And all these things they 
very well know. They know, too, that, if the people were 
to find out exactly whe^e hell is and what it is, they would 
be able, without the aid of priests, to avoid it, and hence 
would cease to fear it and to squander their money upon 
priests. You perceive, therefore, that the priests are act¬ 
ing wisely, for their own interests, in thus keeping the 
location of hell entirely concealed from the eyes of the 
vulgar. 

Although, for the excellent reasons just explained, our 
priests will not give us a particle of information in regard 
to where hell is, they will, with an eye to an increase of 
converts and of filthy lucre, give us any amount of informa¬ 
tion in regard to what it is. They inform us that the only 
articles used, for any purposes whatever, by the inhabitants 
of that country, are “fire and brimstone,” and that, con¬ 
sequently, these articles are in very great demand. Why 
the hellites use so much brimstone, we are not informed. 
They probably use it thus profusely, however, to improve 
their complexions and to prevent itch and other cutaneous 
diseases which, in so hot a climate and among so dirty a 
set of fellows as they are represented to be, would be 
likely to prevail. We are also left in ignorance as to 
whence the hellites obtained so much brimstone, and as to 
what they give in exchange for it. 

Be all these things as they may, however, our priests 
also inform us that hell is a “ bottomless pit.” Admitting 
this to be a fact, we would like to know what there is to 
keep the hellites and their brimstone from tumbling right 
through, and pouring out, on the under side, where the 
bottom ought to have been. Our priests, doubtless, have. 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


519 


An excellent reason for withholding from ns, as they do, 
this much desired information. Be this as it may, the 
fact thrt they do, for some reason, withhold it, has led me 
to seek this information from other and equally reliable 
sources. This information I have obtained, and can assure 
you that there is nothing at all to prevent the occurrence 
of the catastrophe in question; that the liellites do tumble 
right through, just as might be expected, and that no one 
ever remains in hell for any considerable length of time. 

A portion of this information I derive from a poem, 
entitled u The Devil’s Defense; or, A Fair Hearing on the 
Other Side.” This poem professes to be given in the lan¬ 
guage of the devil himself, and hence, in regard to the 
devil and his kingdom, and all his affairs, it ought to be 
regarded as first-class authority. It certainly is as good 
authority as is any ever given in regard to any of these 
things by the champions of the Bible. If these cham¬ 
pions have any better authority, will they please give it ? 

In the poem just mentioned, the devil informs us that, 
at the first, hell was prepared for himself and his subordi¬ 
nates alone ; that the confining of men therein was entirely 
an after-thought; that, almost immediately after their in¬ 
carceration therein, he and his legions made their escape 
from that sulphurous region; that they did this, as we 
might have expected they would, by dropping through; 
that it was then, and not till then, that, in order not to 
lose all that the place had cost him, God resolved to use 
hell as a place in which to incarcerate the souls of ungodly 
human beings. Thus far, the teachings of the devil cer¬ 
tainly appear very plausible. This sulphuric poet then 
goes on and says: 

“ But, lest rebellious men might be, 

Like devils, fond of liberty, 

And lest, at last, they might get out, 

And, joining us, put him to rout, 

He left them nothing, when they fell, 


520 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


On which to stop, inside of hell. 

He seemed to think that, ’neath his frown, 
They’d keep right on, forever, down; 

He did not know that, like a tide, 

They’d all pour out on t’other side; 

Yet this occurred, soon as he tried it, 

Though lying priests have oft denied it.” 

The devil then goes on and informs us that, in order to 
induce himself and his legions io return to hell and to 
remain there, or, at least, to make their headquarters there, 
he was made king of the whole region. He also informs, 
us that, as an additional inducement, God promised him 
at least nine-tenths of the human race, and agreed to for¬ 
ward them as fast as accommodations could be provided 
for them in hell. Of this arrangement, so advantageous 
and so honorable to himself, and of his remarkably suc¬ 
cessful reign, he says: 

“ Established thus upon a throne 
Of red-hot brimstone, all my own, 

I turned my thoughts to regulate 
And make secure my new estate. 

All this I did with great success, 

As e’en my enemies confess; 

Indeed, no enterprise in hell, 

Since then, has failed to prosper well. 

More loyal subjects could not be, 

Than all the devils are to me; 

And men—nine-tenths of all, or more— 

Walk freely in at my front door. 

A few, ashamed of what they’ve been. 

Like curs, of course, come sneaking in; 

But these do not annoy me much, 

As only slaves attend to such. 

These are the priests who do not dare 
To face their flocks assembled there, 

And who appear with poorest grace 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


521 


Of all mankind in such a place. 

These men, with virtue ably shammed, 

Oft stoutly swear that they’re not damned; 
And try to frame some pretext fair— 

Some good excuse for being there. 

They oft invent some wondrous tale. 

And yet their efforts all do fail; 

For all my subjects know full well 
That none but damned men come to hell. 
These priests do also oft declare 
That they cannot endure our air, 

Which is, of course, as well you know, 
With burning sulphur all aglow. 

While still on earth, then, ’twould be well 
For priests to fit themselves for hell, 

By burning sulphur in their rooms, 

And breathing oft its pungent fumes. 

At times, down there, these priest become, 
As once on earth, quite troublesome ; 

And yet it oft amuses me 
To hear them when they disagree. 

That they’re in hell they oft forget. 

And play the role of preachers yet; 
Declare that those who are not crammed 
Chock full of faith will all be damned. 
They oft repeat their catechisms, 

Then come to blows about their isms. 

One says, ‘ Believe and be baptized! ’ 
Another says, ‘ Be circumcised ! ’ 

Another cries, with frantic yell, 

‘ Be born again, or go to hell! ’ 

Another swears that ‘ God will bless you, 

If you’ll but have our priests confess you!’ 
And thus a thousand different creeds, 

Each claimed to be just what man needs,. 
Are fiercely urged, till hell is rife 


522 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


"With holy theologic strife. 

Indeed, forgetting where they are, 

These holy men oft go too far; 

Oft make the toughest devils blush, 

And I am forced to make them hush. 

Save these disputes, throughout all hell, 

The citizens are doing well; 

And this success must vindicate 
My mode of ruling my estate.” 

That the sending of men to hell was, indeed, as taught 
by the devil, entirely an after-thought with God, we also 
learn from Matt, xxv, 41, which says : “ Then shall he 
say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye 
cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his 
angels .” This after-thcught was doubtless suggested to 
God by the priests, who seem to have always controlled 
him in all his actions, and who have always needed a hell 
to produce a demand for their services. How “ye cursed” 
are to find their way to the “ everlasting fire ” in question 
we are not informed. If they are to have a guide, who is 
he to be, and what is to become of him ? Will he remain 
in hell or come back ? 

I have already said that the Jews had no such devil as 
is taught in the New Testament and by the Christian 
Church. Having no hell, they had no use and no room 
for any such personage. They regarded God as equally 
the source of all good and all evil. The word devil is not 
found in the Old Testament. The plural, devils, does ap¬ 
pear in several places, but, in every instance, it is applied 
to the false gods of the gentiles, and not to invisible spirits 
of evil. 

In the Old Testament, as we now have it, the word hell 
does occur in several places. In not one of these places, 
however, can the word possibly be so tortured as to make 
it mean a place of eternal punishment such as hell is now 
said to be. In not one of these places can it possibly be 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


523 


made to mean a vast region filled with fire and brimstone, 
and inhabited by devils and the spirits of the damned. 
Indeed, it is a fact that few Bible critics will venture to 
deny, that, in every one of these places, the word is made 
to thus appear by a mistranslation intentionally made for the 
express purpose of bringing about an apparent harmony , in 
regard to a place of future punishment, between the teach¬ 
ings of the Old Testament and those of the New. 

This base fraud of the translators, however, is easily 
detected even without comparing their pretended transla¬ 
tions with the so-called originals; detected by the fact 
that they have rendered ridiculous every passage in which 
they have inserted the word hell. The following is a fair 
specimen of them all: “Then Jonah prayed unto the Lord 
his God out of the fish's belly, and said, I cried by reason 
of mine affliction unto the Lord, and he heard me, out of 
the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voice” (Jon. 
ii, 1-2). In regard to this hell with a man in its belly, our 
poet-devil says: 

“ Since priests thus make old Jonah yell 
From out the belly of their hell, 

Ungodly persons now do wish 
To know if hell was then a fish ; 

And, if it was, they then desire 
To know just how ’twas set on fire. 

The answer might be somewhat thus : 

That fish, a great unruly cuss, 

If not an endless flaming hell, 

Was certainly a monstrous swell; 

He was, the case to briefly state, 

A hell-of-a-fish , at any rate.” 

The word Satan, which has been very improperly ap¬ 
plied, as a proper name, to the devil, is found in several 
passages of the Old Testament. In every one of these 
passages, however, it means simply an adversary, no 


524 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


matter who that adversary may be. Indeed, the word 
satan is nothing more than the Hebrew word for adver¬ 
sary. It is a common nonn and should always begin with 
a small letter. It is the name of a condition or phase of 
character, which may pertain to anyone, and not the name 
of any individual. Whether good or bad, therefore, every 
man was a satan or adversary to his enemies, no matter 
who they were or what they were. Moral character had 
nothing to do in the matter. A good man could be a satan 
as well as could a bad man. Naturally enough, however, 
every man was inclined to represent his own adversary or 
satan as a bad person. Hence the word came, gradually, 
to be understood in an unfavorable sense only, and to be 
used, finally, by a figure of speech called personification, 
to indicate the source or principle of all evil. This is the 
present devil of the Christian Church, and as a real per¬ 
son, has, of course, no existence. By beginning the word 
satan with a capital letter, the translators of the Old 
Testament have, very incorrectly, made it appear that this 
word is the name of some particular individual. In doing 
this, these translators havp been guilty of great dishonesty. 

The first passage in the Bible, in which we find the 
word satan used, is 1 Chron. xxi, 1, which says : ** Amd 
Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to 
number Israel.” Why he had to stand up to do this, we 
are not informed. But who was this Satan—this adversary ? 
Our priests would fain have us believe that it was the 
devil that they now teach—that it was their great, though 
utterly mythical, ally or partner in swindling the people. 
Most of these priests, however, know full well that, in 
teaching this doctrine, they are teaching a deliberate false¬ 
hood. They know full well that this satan was no other 
than God himself. In 2 Sam. xxiv, 1, the very same event 
is recorded as follows: “And again the anger of the Lord 
was kindled against Israel, and he [the Lord himself , in . 
order to have a pretext for punishing Israel] moved David 
against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah.” Dare 


the DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


525 


any champion of the Bible read this latter passage and 
then declare that it was the devil —the personified principle 
of all evil that “moved David?” Was God himself the 
devil —the personified principle of all evil ? When “ the 
anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he” 
proposed tc do them harm—to “give them hell”—as a 
Christian would express it—he became, of course, for the 
time, a satan or adversary to them, and was very properly 
so called. The “ Satan ” of the one of these parallel 
passages, and the “ Lord ” of the other, were certainly one 
and the same person. There was certainly only one mover 
or provoker concerned in the affair. In the one passage, 
this mover or provoker is spoken of in his temporary char¬ 
acter of adversary to Israel; and, in order to represent 
him in this character in the Hebrew language, he has, of 
course, to be called Satan, there being no other word in 
that language by which this character could be expressed. 
In the other passage, on the contrary, he is spoken of in 
his usual character, and, hence, in this passage, he is, of 
course, called by his usual appellation, the “Lord.” 

If, as mentioned in these two parallel passages, the 
Lord and Satan be not one and the same person, then the 
two passages indisputably contradict each other, and thus 
render it certain the one or the other of them is bound to 
be false. Not knowing which of them is false, we cannot^ 
of course, accept either of them as true. In any view of 
the case, therefore, these two passages, when taken to¬ 
gether, as they must be, utterly fail to establish the Chris¬ 
tian’s devil in the Old Testament. 

The next passage, in which the word satan is used, is 
Job i, 6, 7 : “ Now there was a day when the sons of God 
came to present themselves before the Lord [who was this 
“Lord?” Was he, or was he not, God himself, and the 
father of the “sons” in question?] and Satan came also 
among them. And the Lord said unto Satan, Whence 
comest thou? [This “Lord,” you see, was limited in 
knowledge. Until he had inquired of Satan, and Satan 


526 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


had informed him, he did not know where this latter gen¬ 
tleman had been, nor what he had been doing]. Then 
Satan answered the Lord, and said, From going to and fro 
in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” In 
the first two verses of the next chapter, this language is 
repeated, with the additional information that Satan’s ob¬ 
ject, in thus coming together with the sons of God, was 
“to present himself before the Lord,” the same as they 
presented themselves. 

From all these things we learn that this satan or ad¬ 
versary was an inhabitant, not of hell, as our priests would 
fain have us believe, but of the earth—of Idumea, the 
country in which Job lived. We also learn that, on terms 
of friendship and equality, he was wont to associate with 
“ the sons of God,” who were undoubtedly human beings. 
We learn, further, that he attended the same church or 
place of worship that they attended, and worshiped the 
same God that they worshiped. We learn, finally, that all 
the conversations between the Lord and this person were 
of the most friendly, respectful, and dignified character. 
Who, then, and what was this Satan ? Evidently a human 
being—an Idumean, one of the sons of God—one of Job’s 
neighbors. He was probably called an adversary or satan 
because he differed somewhat from the other sons of God 
in religious opinions, and, by reason of thi x s difference, 
created dissensions in the church. From the fact that he 
was constantly “ going to and fro in the earth,” he was 
probably a missionary or traveling preacher of some kind. 
What better satans could we wish than many of these 
would make ? 

Be all these things as they may, however, it is certain 
that this satan was not the great arch-fiend that plays so 
conspicuous a part in Christian mythology. Indeed, the 
scene which we have been considering was evidently an 
imaginary one that never existed except in the fine poetic 
mind of the unknown author of the book of Job. Besides 
this, by nearly all Bible critics, it is now admitted that the 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 527 

book of Job is a purely gentile production, and that, con¬ 
sequently, it does not constitute any portion of the real 
Hebrew scriptures. Its entire scenery being located in a 
gentile country, all of its characters and all of its ideas are 
certainly gentile. If, therefore, it did teach a real personal 
devil, this fact would simply go to prove what I claim, 
that the idea of such a being is of purely gentile origin, 
and that, consequently, it should never have been incor¬ 
porated, as it has been, into any portion of the Bible. 

We next find the word satan used in Ps. cix, 6 : “ Set 

thou a wicked man over him [A wicked man, you see, was, 
occasionally, a great convenience. Had there not been any 
wicked man, God could not possibly have answered this 
prayer] ; and let Satan stand at his right hand.” [Satan, 
also, was a great convenience—an absolute necessity to 
God in answering certain prayers.] The entire psalm, of 
which this is a part, and which is ascribed to David, is a 
prayer of so horribly cruel and blasphemous a nature that 
it could have been offered only by one fiend to another. 
The author is imprecating all manner of evils upon one of 
his enemies. These evils, however, are all of an earthly 
nature, and all pertain to the present life. The Satan, 
therefore, or adversary who is to “ stand at his right 
hand,” is just as much an earthly character—just as much 
a human being—as is the “ wicked man ” who is to be “ set 
over him,” “the extortioner” who is to “catch all that he 
hath,” or “the stranger” who is to “ spoil his labor.” We 
still find not the slightest trace of the great sinner-scaring 
and money-making partner of the Christian priesthood— 
Old Splitfoot. 

In Zech. iii, 1, 2, we read : “ And he showed me Joshua 

the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and 
Satan standing at his right hand to resist him. And the 
Lord said unto Satan, The Lord rebuke thee, 0 Satan; 
even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee.” 
This, I believe, is the last passage of the Old Testament in 
which the word Satan is found. And, in this passage, as 


528 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


in all the other passages that we have noticed, the Satan 
mentioned is evidently nothing more than a mere adver¬ 
sary—nothing more than a mere man, who was as capable 
of being seen as was the high priest, and who, as a man of 
great and dangerous influence, was opposing the plans of 
the high priest. He was certainly a person, too, whom 
the Lord supposed to be still possessed of a conscience, 
and to be still capable of feeling shame. Otherwise, the 
Lord would have known that a mere rebuke would have 
been worse than lost upon him—that it would simply ex¬ 
cite his ridicule. Being already sunk as low as it was 
possible for him to sink, and being already as thoroughly 
damned as it was possible for him to be, what would Old 
Splitfoot have cared for such a rebuke? And, knowing 
this old gentleman’s unchangeable character and condition 
as well as he must have known them, would the Lord have 
wasted time vainly rebuking him ? 

If, however, Zechariah’s Satan were the devil, we ought 
not to be surprised at that fact. Born and reared up, as 
he was, at Babylon, among gentiles who believed in the 
existence of a bad god or devil—in the existence of the 
original of the Christians’ great arch-fiend—the wonder is 
that Zechariah did not invest his satan with some of the 
characteristics of that noted personage. Zechariah lived 
in that transitional period, called the Babylonish captivity, 
during which the religion proper of the Hebrews was 
mostly lost by becoming blended with that of their gentile 
masters. At the beginning of the Christian era, therefore, 
nearly all the religious doctrines of the gentiles prevailed, 
in some form, among the Jews. We would expect, 
therefore, to find the devil fully acknowledged as a real 
personage by all the writers who flourished after the be¬ 
ginning of that era. And such we find to be, indeed, 
the fact. 

“Then was Jesus led up of the spirit [what spirit?] 
into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil ” (Matt, iv, 
1). Since, as James i, 13, declares, “ God cannot be tempted 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


529 


with evil” and since Jesus was tempted of the devil , we are 
bound to admit either that Jesus was not God, or that the 
devil was not evil. Which admission shall we make ? The 
passage that begins this paragraph is the first passage in 
the whole Bible that clearly refers to the real devil of 
Christian mythology, Old Splitfoot himself. Here, how¬ 
ever, in that grand farce, the founding of the Christian 
religion, he is unequivocally and unceremoniously intro¬ 
duced, upon the stage, as a star actor, with whom the 
author takes it for granted that the people are already well 
acquainted. This abrupt introduction, however, of so im¬ 
portant a personage into the Christians’ mythological 
family of deities is not at all strange. Under the circum¬ 
stances, it is just what ought to be expected. By this 
time, the Jewish people were, indeed, already fully 
acquainted with this important new deity. They had 
formed his acquaintance at Babylon, some four hundred 
years before; and many of them, especially those of the 
lower and more ignorant classes, had adopted him, into 
their faith, as a real deific personage. No formal intro¬ 
duction of him, therefore, to the people of Matthew’s time, 
no proof of his existence, was deemed necessary. This 
was especially true in regard to the lower classes of the 
Jews, who alone, as a rule, became Christians. Indeed, it 
is a well known fact that all Bibles—all systems of religion 
—are founded upon a previous belief in the existence of 
the gods that they severally sustain. This belief is always 
older than the Bible or the system of religion that sustains 
it, and, consequently, it is never founded upon, or derived 
from, that Bible, or that system of religion. To suppose 
that a Bible, or a system of religion, existed prior to a be¬ 
lief in the existence of the deity that it sustains, would be 
simply to suppose that the Bible in question was written, 
or the system of religion elaborated by atheists—by per¬ 
sons who did not themselves believe a word of their own 
writings or their own teachings. All Bibles and all sys- 


530 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


terns of religion merely sustain old beliefs. They never 
originate new ones. 

As the Old Testament, without a word of explanation 
or of proof, simply takes up and sustains the already 
originated idea of a God, as it had come to exist in the 
minds of the ignorant and superstitious people for whom 
that portion of the Bible was written, so, in like manner, 
the New Testament simply takes up and sustains the al¬ 
ready originated idea of a devil, as it had come to exist in 
the minds of the almost equally ignorant and Superstitious 
people for whom this portion of the Bible was written. 
The same is also true of the Holy Ghost, who was intro¬ 
duced upon the Christians’ mythological stage at about the 
same time with the devil, and as a kind of antidote for the 
devil’s evil influence upon men. In like manner, the New 
Testament takes up, sustains, and interweaves into the Chris¬ 
tian religion the already existing pagan idea, that, like man 
and the inferior animals, the gods beget offspring and thus 
increase their own number. All these ideas of a devil, a 
Holy Ghost, an increase of gods, etc., are essentially poly¬ 
theistic in their nature, and purely pagan in their origin. 
Whatever proofs, therefore, there may be of the existence 
of God himself, of his son Jesus, of his mother the reputed 
virgin, of his doubtful kinsman the Holy Ghost; in short, 
of all the uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, and other 
relatives, which the polytheistic idea upon which Chris¬ 
tianity is founded renders it possible for God to have ; 
whatever proofs, I repeat, there may be of the existence 
of any of these mythical personages, or of the equally 
mythical personage, Old Splitfoot, is to be sought, not in 
the Bible, in which all these personages are mere assump¬ 
tions, but in the writings and the religious systems of the 
pagans, among whom the ideas of these various person¬ 
ages originated, and who never knew anything of the Bible 
or of the Christian religion. In order to prevent the 
number of Gods from becoming too great, and the poly¬ 
theistic nature of their religion from becoming too glaring 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


531 


to suit the monotheistic Jews, the Christians, as soon as 
God had begotten one son, proceeded at once to render 
him utterly incapable of begetting any more offspring of 
either sex, and then took him, his son, and his other kins¬ 
man, the Holy Ghost, the three principal Gods of their 
religion, all composed of paper, and pasted them together 
into one triple monster-God which they call the Holy 
Trinity. 

From all this, it is evident that, so far as the Bible 
is concerned, the devil and the Holy Ghost, two of the 
three actors in the scene now under consideration, were 
mere assumptions or fictitious characters, and not real 
persons ; and this fact renders it equally evident that the 
only remaining character, Jesus, was also a mere assump- 
tion or fictitious character, so far, at least, as his presence 
in this scene was concerned. For it would have been 
utterly impossible for a real person, Jesus, to be really 
led into the wilderness, by a fictitious person, the Holy 
Ghost, and there really tempted, for “ forty days and forty' 
nights,” by a fictitious tempter, the devil. The whole 
story, therefore, is undoubtedly a pure fabrication, this 
scene never having occurred at all outside of the fertile 
imagination of the unknown author of the so-called Gospel 
according to Saint Matthew. That the story is thus a pure 
fabrication is also rendered still more evident by several 
very extravagant statements made therein, some of which 
I will now proceed to notice. 

In the second verse, we read : “ And when he had fasted 
forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungered.” 
That a man in good health, and especially while living in 
the fresh air out of doors, should be both able and willing 
to fast thus “ forty days and forty nights,” is utterly in¬ 
credible. Since the Bible itself claims nothing miraculous 
in this case, the champions of that book have no right to> 
claim any such things. And since the Bible itself does; 
not claim that, in its nature, its composition, and its func¬ 
tions, the body of Jesus differed, in any respect, from the 


532 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


bodies of mere men, the champions of that book have no 
right to claim any such difference. They are bound, there¬ 
fore, either to claim that mere men can fast thus “ forty 
days and forty nights,” without injury to their health, and 
without even becoming hungry, or else admit that the whole 
story is, as I hold it to be, an incredible fabrication. And 
now, which horn of this dilemma will they choose ? 

The champions of the Bible are also bound to admit 
that, whether it be true or false, this story never has been, 
and, from its very nature, never can be, of the slightest 
benefit to mankind or the slightest credit to Jesus. Ad¬ 
mitting that he actually did perform the wonderful feat of 
fasting “ forty days and forty nights,” of what conceivable 
use to men was that feat ? Are they expected to be fools 
enough to attempt to follow his example ? If not, what 
are they expected to do about it ? How are they expected 
to be benefited by that example ? And as to Jesus, since 
he did not get hungry during all that time, was not his 
fasting the same as no fasting at all? Was it any test of 
his ability to bear suffering ? And even if he had suffered 
the utmost pangs of hunger, would it have been any credit 
to him to starve himself thus, when there was no necessity 
for his doing so ? In any view of the case, dare the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible claim that, by this foolish feat of fast¬ 
ing, he rendered himself any wiser or any better ? What 
would we think of a man who should now undertake to 
fast “ forty days and forty nights,” and what would we 
think of his word if he should declare that, without feel¬ 
ing hunger till the very last, he actually had fasted for so 
long a period? Would we, in such a case, accept as true 
the word of any one of our neighbors ? If not, how can 
we accept the word of an anonymous writer of whose 
character for veracity we know nothing ? Besides this, the 
author of the story, not having been with Jesus on the 
occasion in question, could not, of his own knowledge, have 
testified that the fasting feat in question was ever per¬ 
formed. At best, he wrote, of necessity, from mere 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


533 


hearsay. And what do we know of the value of that 
hearsay? Who was with Jesus to know that he fasted 
so long? So far as human society was concerned, was he 
not entirely alone ? And did he ever tell this incredible 
story concerning himself ? Be all these things as they may, 
have we not several better authenticated cases of recent 
occurrence, in which mere men have, without any claim to 
miraculous aid, fasted, or at least claimed to fast, forty 
days or more ? 

The fifth verse says : “ Then the devil taketh him up 

into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the 
temple.” This was quite a romantic adventure. The pin¬ 
nacles of the temple were extremely slender spires, or 
rather spikes, erected upon the roof to keep birds from 
settling there. After the scaffolding, used by the builders, 
had been taken down, the top of those pinnacles could be 
reached only by birds, angels, devils, and other things that 
could fly; and when they were reached, even by these 
winged things, they were of such form that birds could not 
rest upon them. How Jesus and the devil managed to sit 
upon them without impaling themselves, we are not in¬ 
formed. As to how they reached the top of the pinnacle, 
the case is very clear. The devil, who seems to have been 
a very pleasant, obliging, and gentlemanly kind of being, 
with wings resembling those of a bat, must, of necessity, 
have picked Jesus up in his claws (the devil has claws in¬ 
stead of hands, and split hoofs instead of feet), and car¬ 
ried him right through the air to the top of that pinnacle, 
just as a hawk would pick up and carry away a small 
chicken. It is probable that, after so long a fast, Jesus 
was very light. In this case, the devil could very easily 
have lugged him along thus through the air. At any rate, 
the devil was certainly the principal hero of the whole 
affair. 

From the next verse we learn that if the devil had been 
mean enough to leave Jesus on that pinnacle, there would 
have been no way for him to get down except by either 


534 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


falling or calling for angels with wings to come and help 
him down. In order to tempt him, and have fun at his ex¬ 
pense, the devil did try to make him believe that he would 
have to get down by jumping off, and ridiculed the idea of 
his pretending to be the Son of God, when he very pru¬ 
dently declined to get down in any such way. All this 
goes to prove that the pinnacle had been reached by flight 
through the air. Indeed, I believe that the champions of 
the Bible generally admit that this was the way in which 
that astounding feat was performed. But is the story at 
all credible ? This feat is described as having been per¬ 
formed in open day, when the two reckless adventurers 
who performed it would have been distinctly visible, upon 
that inaccessible pinnacle, to all the inhabitants of the en¬ 
tire city. Their flight through the air, going to and from 
the pinnacle, must also have been witnessed by great num¬ 
bers. And would not the sight of achievements so won¬ 
derful have produced the most intense excitemeut among 
the people ? How would it be now, if the devil should be 
seen, in broad daylight, flying, with a man in his claws, to 
the top of the spire of Trinity Church, or to the head of 
the goddess of liberty upon the dome of the Capitol at 
Washington? Would no one take the slightest notice of 
4he matter, or ever afterwards mention it? Would not 
:such total indifference to a phenomenon so wonderful be 
utterly incredible ? Can we, then, reasonably believe that 
the Jews exhibited just such indifference to just such a 
phenomenon ? 

The eighth verse says: “ Again the devil taketh him 

up into an exceeding high mountain, and slioweth him all 
the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them.” This 
is, indeed, a whopper. If the author were still living, 
Gulliver would have to look to his laurels. The story, 
however, becomes still more monstrous when, in the next 
verse, we are told that the devil offered, for a very small 
^consideration, to transfer all these kingdoms to Jesus. 
Does the author expect us to believe that the devil himself 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


535 


was a fool, or that lie was simply trying to make a fool of 
Jesus? So far from owning all of those kingdoms, and 
having power to transfer them to another, the devil did 
not, at that time, own a foot of land outside of hell. He 
must have known, too, that no intelligent person could be 
ignorant of this fact, or could look upon his offer to trans¬ 
fer those kingdoms as anything else than a hugely ridicu¬ 
lous joke. Before making him such an offer, therefore, the 
devil must evidently have come to the conclusion that 
Jesus was an idiot, or, at best, a very green young man. 
The devil probably came to this conclusion when Jesus 
undertook to perform the worse than idiotic feat of 
fasting “ forty days and forty nights.” To what other con¬ 
clusion could he have come? Could he have failed to 
recognize the patent fact that any one who was fool enough 
to undertake the performance of such a feat, was also fool 
enough to be made believe that the devil owned “ all the 
kingdoms of the world,” and had power to transfer them 
to whomsoever he pleased ? 

By representing the devil’s absurd offer as a real tempta - 
♦tion to Jesus, the author himself virtually brands this 
latter personage with a degree of ignorance scarcely short 
of idiocy. He brands him with actually believing that the 
devil really did own “ all the kingdoms of the world,” and 
that, by simply falling down and worshiping the devil, he 
himself might obtain possession of them all. To have 
represented Jesus as knowing better than to believe all 
this, would have been simply to represent the pretended 
temptation as a mere farce, too silly to be engaged in by 
two young boys, and not as a real temptation at all. “Were 
I, on the same condition, to now make you the same offer, 
would that offer be to you a real temptation ? Certainly 
not. You would know that these kingdoms were not mine 
to give. To a fool, however, who could be made believe 
that I owned “ all the kingdoms of the world,” such an 
offer might be a real temptation. If, then, Jesus really 
was tempted , as he is represented to have been, by the ab- 


536 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


surd offer in question, was lie not an egregious fool ? 
Which are we to believe, then, that the whole story is a 
mere fiction, or that Jesus was such a fool? We are com¬ 
pelled to believe the one or the other. 

In this excursion to the top of the “ exceeding high 
mountain ” in question, as in their trip to the top of the 
pinnacle of the temple, the devil evidently had to lug the 
weak and emaciated Jesus along through the air. Indeed, 

I believe that few, if any, of the champions of the Bible 
hold that Jesus reached the top of that “exceeding high 
mountain” in any other way. But since there is no very 
high mountain near Jerusalem, where is the mountain in 
question—the mountain so “ exceeding high,” that, from its 
summit, may be seen, at one view, “ all the kingdoms of 
the world and the glory of them ?” Do we not all very 
well know that there never was any such mountain near 
Jerusalem, or anywhere else ? And are we not bound also 
to know equally well that Jesus and the devil never went 
to the top of any such mountain? Are we not bound to 
know that the story of that aerial excursion is all a pure 
fiction? Is not this story, like many other stories of the* 
Bible, evidently founded upon the now long-since exploded 
idea that the earth was a small, flat, and stationary body, 
“ all the kingdoms ” of which could be seen, at one view, 
from the summit of an “ exceeding high mountain ?” 

Besides all these things, if Jesus actually did, from 
the summit of that “ exceeding high mountain,” see “ all 
the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them,” he 
must have discovered the continent of America, and 
many other countries then unknown to the people among 
whom he lived. He must also have discovered the form 
of the earth, and have thus gained some knowledge of the 
sublime truths of astronomy. Why, then, instead of 
spending all his time strolling about the country like a 
common tramp, telling childish stories, cursing fig-trees 
for not bearing fruit out of season, eating and drinking till 
he was called a “ gluttonous man and a wine-bibber,” etc.. 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


537 


why, I ask, instead of spending all his time in these things, 
and in the performing of certain feats of jugglery, all of 
which are daily excelled at the present time, did he not 
teach to the people the exceedingly important knowledge 
which, through the kindness of the devil, he had gained 
upon the summit of that “exceeding high mountain?” 
Why did he not tell them of America, of the isles of the 
sea, of “ all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
them?” Why did he not teach them the truth in regard 
to the form and the size of the earth, and in regard to her 
several motions and their results ? His followers believed 
that the earth was flat and stationary; and, afterwards, put 
to death thousands of innocent persons for teaching doc¬ 
trines inconsistent with that belief. Why, then, instead 
of correcting that false and pernicious belief, did he con¬ 
firm it, by teaching doctrines utterly inconsistent with any 
other belief ? Could any but a very bad being liav acted 
in this way ? If the devil would thus kindly carry me to 
the top of a mountain so “exceeding high,” and would thus 
show me “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of 
them,” I would make a better use of the knowledge I 
would thus gain. But who saw the devil take Jesus to 
the top of the mountain in question, and who informed the 
author of Matthew that his devilsliip ever performed any 
such feat at all? 

If these two aerial voyages were ever performed at all, 
they were certainly among the most remarkable events in 
the whole life of Jesus. How, then, are we to account for 
the fact that, of the four Evangelists, only two, Matthew 
and Luke, make any mention of these events ? And how 
are we to account for the additional and very damaging 
fact that, in their accounts of these voyages, these two 
Evangelists virtually contradict each other, Matthew de¬ 
claring that the voyage to the “ exceeding high mountain” 
was made after that to the “pinnacle of the temple,” while 
Luke declares that the order of the two voyages was 


538 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


exactly the reverse, that to the “ exceeding high moun¬ 
tain” being made first? 

Mark, like Matthew and Luke, has Jesus, immediately 
after his baptism, spend forty days in the wilderness. 
Unlike these other two Evangelists, however, Mark does 
not have Jesus fast during that time. On the contrary, he 
has him “ministered” unto; that is, supplied with every 
thing he needed, by “angels.” Matthew and Luke have 
Jesus fast, during the whole forty days, in order that, by 
becoming very hungry, he might be tempted by the devil 
to try the silly experiment of turning a stone into bread. 
They seem to think that they have greatly honored Jesus 
by having him resist this temptation. They do not seem 
to recognize the fact that they have simply made him act 
very foolishly in fasting so long for the express purpose 
of bringing about that temptation in order that, by resist¬ 
ing it, he might gain honor. This was certainly a strange 
method of getting honor. Mark has Jesus act in a much 
more sensible manner. He simply has him spend forty 
days in the wilderness “with, the wild beasts,” seeing a 
good time, no doubt, hunting those beasts. Mark also, 
very wisely, says not a word about those two incredible 
aerial voyages which Matthew and Luke have Jesus make, 
on board the old air-ship, Beelzebub, to the top of a 
“ pinnacle of the temple,” and to the summit of “ an ex¬ 
ceeding high mountain.” H those two exceedingly won¬ 
derful voyages were ever made at all, is not Mark's total 
silence concerning them utterly unaccountable ? 

John, who wrote long after Matthew, and who must 
have heard of all of these pretended events, omits the en¬ 
tire story, the forty days in the wilderness, the fasting, 
and all. By this omission, he shows clearly that he did 
not believe that any of these events ever occurred. These 
were very remarkable events, and, had he believed that 
they had ever occurred, he would certainly not have failed 
to mention them. His omission to mention these things, 
however, is, by no means, the worst. His account of the 



THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


539 


movements and the doings of Jesus renders it utterly im¬ 
possible for this latter personage, immediately after his 
baptism, or, indeed, at any time after that event, to have 
spent “ forty days and forty nights ” in the wilderness, or 
to have engaged in any very long feat of fasting, or of 
being tempted by the devil. John, therefore, contradicts, 
in toto , the entire story under consideration. I will first 
repeat the story, as told by Mark, and then give what 
John has to say of the movements and the doings of Jesus 
during the same time covered by this story. You will 
then perceive that the two accounts are utterly irreconcil¬ 
able with each other. 

“And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came 
. . . and was baptized of John in Jordan . . . And im¬ 
mediately the Spirit driveth him into the wilderness. And 
he was there in the wilderness forty days tempted [how 
tempted ?] of Satan; and was with the wild beasts [in 
what respect was he with them, and what kind of wild 
beasts were they?]; and the angels [what were those 
angels ?] ministered [what was the nature of the ministra¬ 
tions?] unto him” (Mark i, 9, 12, 13). This account cer¬ 
tainly has Jesus spend the first forty days, immediately fol¬ 
lowing his baptism, in the wilderness among “the wild 
beasts,” and does not have him begin to choose his 
disciples till after the expiration of these forty days. [See 
the next six verses of the same chapter.] 

“And [at the time of baptizing Jesus] John bare record, 
saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a 
dove, and it abode upon him . . . Again the next day 
after [the next day after that on which Jesus was bap¬ 
tized], John stood, and two of his disciples; and looking 
upon Jesus as he walked, he saith, Behold the Lamb of God! 
And the two disciples heard him speak, and they followed 
Jesus . . . They came and saw where he dwelt, and 
abode with him that day . . . The day following [being 
the second day after his baptism] Jesus would go forth 
into Galilee, and findeth Philip, and saith unto him, Fol- 


540 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


low me. . . . And the the third day [after his baptism] 
there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother 
of Jesus was there ; and both Jesus was called, and his 
disciples, to the marriage . . . After this [after the close 
of the marriage feast which, according to custom, probably 
lasted seven days] he went down to Capernaum, he, and 
his mother, and his brethren [the so-called virgin, you see, 
had several other. children besides Jesus ; and, following 
the very doubtful example of Jesus, the whole family, the 
virgin mother and all, had become strollers or vagrants], 
and his disciples [by this time he had with him quite a 
crowd of idlers and vagrants, none of whom had any visible 
means of subsistence]; and they continued there not many 
days. And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and Jesus 
went up to Jerusalem ” (John i, 32-43, and ii, 1, 2, 12, 13). 
From this time onward, according to John’s further testi¬ 
mony, Jesus was never absent from among his followers, 
and, so, far from ever being guilty of the folly of fasting 
“ forty days and forty nights ” at a time, or any portion of 
that period, he was wont to indulge so freely in the luxu¬ 
ries of the table, for which he never paid, that he came to 
be commonly called “ a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber.” 
"Whatever John’s testimony be worth, therefore, its entire 
weight goes to prove that the first devil-story of the New 
Testament—the first story, in fact, in the whole Bible con¬ 
cerning Old Splitfoot as we now have him, is nothing more 
nor less than a monstrous imposition. 

“As they [Jesus and his disciples] went out, behold, 
they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. 
And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake . . . 
But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through 
the prince of the devils ” (Matt, ix, 32-34). From this, we 
learn that, in the time of Jesus, the devils, who were all 
doubtless descended from the one original devil—from the 
one primitive source of all sin—had so increased in num¬ 
bers that they had come to constitute a nation with a 
regular government at the head of which was a prince,. 



THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


541 


elsewhere called Beelzebub. This prince is supposed to 
be the original devil himself, the father as well as the ruler 
of all the other devils. As to who were the mothers of all 
these young devils, the Lord only knows. From this same 
passage we also learn that the devils had abandoned the 
“everlasting fire prepared for” their special benefit, and 
had come to reside, like tapeworms or something of that 
kind, inside of the bodies of men. These are all very im¬ 
portant facts. Why the devils chose the body of a man as 
their place of abode—as the country in which to carry on 
their government—we are not informed. I suppose, how¬ 
ever, that they chose this situation simply because of its 
warmth—singly to avoid taking cold, to which, had they 
been exposed to the open air, they would have been very 
liable after so long a stew in hell’s horribly hot climate. 
As to the man, inside of whom they dwelt, if he was not, 
like Jonah’s fish, a regular little “hell,” he certainly was, 
to say the least of the matter, in a hell-of-a-condition . 

Luke (viii, 27-33) gives quite a romantic account of an¬ 
other adventure with devils : “And when he went forth to 
land, there met him out of the city a certain man, which had 
devils [blue devils, of course] long time, and ware no clothes, 
neither abode in any house, but in the tombs. [What then 
was this naked devilish fellow doing in the “city,” and how 
did he manage, “ in the tombs,” to get his living? Was he 
a ghoul living upon the bodies of the dead ?] . . . And 
Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name ? [Jesus, you 
. see, was not omniscient. He did not know the names of 
the devils.] And he said Legion : because many devils 
[about five thousand] were entered into him. And they 
besought him [besought whom, Jesus or the man?] that 
he would not command them to go out into the deep. 
[How these poor devils, just released from “ everlasting 
fire,” did fear water!] And there was there a herd of 
many swine feeding on the mountain : and they besought 
him [who besought him, the devils or the swine?] that he 
’would suffer them [suffer whom, the devils or the swine?] 


542 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


to enter into them. [Into whom, the devils or the swine ?] 
And he suffered them. [Suffered whom, the devils or the 
swine?] Then went the devils out of the man [out of 
which end of him did they go?], and entered into the 
swine [at which end of the swine did they enter, and 
what effect had their entrance upon the price of pork?] ; 
and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the 
lake, and were choked.” And what became of the devils 
who, at the time of this cstastrophe, were inside of the 
swine ? Were these poor devils choked, too, the same as 
were the unfortunate swine ? They must have been, since 
they were never afterwards heard of, and since, being 
totally unused to water, they would drown very easily. If 
they were, indeed, all thus drowned, it was certainly a 
serious practical joke that Jesus played upon them. He 
might as well have sent them out into the deep at 
once, as to thus send them into the swine and then drive 
the swine into the deep. After having just agreed that he 
would not send them out into the deep, his trick was a 
cruel breach of promise, and was too mean to be either 
justifiable or funny. If, instead of being cruelly and un¬ 
necessarily drowned by this trick, those sAvine had been 
killed and eaten, with the devils still in them, what effect 
would the presence of the devils in the pork have had 
upon the eaters ? Could any amount of cooking have so 
thoroughly killed those devils, fire-proof as they were, as 
to render their presence in the pork entirely harmless ? 
Of this affair, our poet-devil, the great Old Splitfoot him¬ 
self, speaks as follows : 

“Again, upon a certain day, 

As two Evangelists do say, 

A man came forth from out the gloom, 

In which he dwelt in some old tomb, 

And who, as he himself confessed, 

A legion devils then possessed, 

And loudly unto Jesus called, 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


543 


As if his soul was much appalled. 

He’d heard that Jesus went about, 

And cast from men all devils out, 

He therefore begged, or rather they. 

That, if they must, without delay, 

Depart from out this human hell, 

In which they’d long been wont to dwell, 
And which, they said, ’twould greatly grieve, 
And almost break their hearts to leave— 
They begged, I say, his grace divine 
To give them homes inside a swine. 

And Jesus, ever kind, they say, 

To devil’s e’en, when they do pray, 

Did grant at once this fair request, 

And gave a swine to be possessed. 

The devils then, all in a trice, 

Assured of quarters warm and nice, 

Like warriors trained, fell into line. 

And soon pulled up inside the swine. 

The deed that Jesus did that day, 

In giving that same swine away, 

W as wondrous kind, all Christians swear, 
And calls for praises everywhere. 

But then the swine, ’tis now well known, 
That he then gave was not his own ; 

And anyone can generous be 
With other people’s property; 

With his own swine, ’tis clear to us, 

Hp never would have acted thus. 

This wondrous tale some things doth lack 
Which, far too long, have been kept back, 

We ought to know by just what route 
Those devils marched from that man out. 
We’d also like to know full well 
How devils could in porkers dwell; 

Why they such quarters should desire, 

How large a space they would require, 


544 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


And what they’d do, when cold, for fire : 

And whether they the tail or snout 
Would use when passing in and out.” 

Luke has this wonderful affair occur in the country of 
the Gadarenes; Matthew, in that of the Gergesenes. Luke 
has only one man, on this occasion, possessed of devils; 
Matthew has two men so possessed. Luke has his one man 
come out of the city to meet Jesus : Matthew has his two 
men come out of the tombs. Luke has his swine drowned 
in a lake; Matthew has his drowned in a sea. Thus, in 
this one short devil story, we have four utterly irreconcil¬ 
able discrepancies between the accounts of these two au¬ 
thors. In some parts, Mark’s account agrees with that of 
Matthew; in other parts, with that of Luke. Seeing how 
the story, as told severally by the other gospel writers, 
was received among intelligent people, John, who wrote 
last of all, very wisely concluded to omit it entirely, and 
to make up a more reasonable one in its place. Letting 
all these things pass, however, let us see what we can 
learn from this truly wonderful story. 

Among the Romans, the Jews after their conquest by 
the Romans, and several other nations, like a regiment or 
a brigade with us, a legion was a regularly organized mili¬ 
tary body containing, usually, about 5,000 men. It was 
in use only among nations considerably advanced in civili¬ 
zation, and whose wars were carried on in a regular and 
systematic manner. The fact, therefore, that the devils in 
question were organized into a legion, or, at legist, knew 
the nature and use of a legion, together with the fact al¬ 
ready noticed, that they were ruled by a prince, constitutes 
proof positive that they possessed a regular form of gov¬ 
ernment, that they were considerably advanced in civiliza¬ 
tion, and that their wars, if they were so unwise as to have 
any, were carried on in a regular and systematic manner. 

From all this, it is evident that those devils must have 
possessed cities, towns, schools, courts, churches, and all 


THE DEYIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


545 


other things essential to a civilized condition. It is also evi¬ 
dent that, to some extent at least, they must have engaged in 
manufactures, commerce, and many other occupations with¬ 
out which civilization could not exist. But how large 
could they have been and yet have had plenty of room to 
thus live, an entire nation of them together, and carry on 
their multitudinous occupations inside of the body of a sin¬ 
gle man or of a single swine, and that, too, without percepti¬ 
bly changing his shape or increasing either his size or his 
weight ? In a preceding paragraph, I suggested that they 
might have been something like tape-worms. We now 
perceive, however, that that suggestion was not a good 
one. A single legion, and much more an entire nation of 
creatures as large as tape-worms, would instantly burst a 
man larger than one of Munchausen’s Brobdignagians, or 
a swine of similarly immense proportions. It is now evi¬ 
dent that those devils could not have been any larger than 
are those animalculse called trichinae, which often very in¬ 
juriously infest the bodies of swine, and, occasionally, 
those of men. Indeed, who knows but that those devils 
were trichinae, and that trichinae are devils? Let them 
have been what they may, however, they must, for crea¬ 
tures so extremely diminutive, have possessed wonderful 
lungs to enable them, from the inside of the man, to carry 
on with Jesus a clearly audible conversation. 

The champions of the Bible denounce us as Infidels, 
and confidently declare that we will be eternally roasted 
in fire and brimstone, if we do not implicitly believe 
everything we find recorded in that book. In order, there¬ 
fore, to save us from so unutterably fearful a fate, and to 
enable us to march, with flying colors, through the pearly 
gates of the New Jerusalem, into the unspeakable joys of 
heaven, will not these champions be so kind as to help us 
believe this exceedingly monstrous devil-story by giving 
all the information they can in regard to the devils men¬ 
tioned in it? The story, you see, entirely eclipses that of 
Munchausen’s Liliputians. When compared with these 


546 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


devils, those inch-long Liliputians were immense giants. 
In order to be able to believe this story, therefore, and to 
thus escape the otherwise unavoidable torments of an end¬ 
less hell, we certainly need all the assistance we can pos¬ 
sibly obtain. 

Will these champions, then, please inform us when God 
made those devils, where he made them, how he 'made 
them, of what kind of material he made them, how long it 
took him to make them, and why he made them at all? 
Were they among the things that God pronounced “very 
good?” Were those devils all made at the same time, of 
the same material, and in the same manner, or at different 
times, of different material, and in different manners? 
Were they all made males, or were both sexes represented 
among them? If they were all made males, of what use 
was their sex? If both sexes were represented among 
them, did they breed and have little squalling baby devils, 
and did these little devils have to take any kind of sooth¬ 
ing syrup to keep them quiet ? Why were those devils 
never known to infest the bodies of men or of swine until 
about the time that Jesus is said to have lived? Do they 
still thus infest the bodies of men and of swine ? If they 
do, why do not our priests cast them out ? Does not Jesus 
strictly command and fully empower all those whom he 
authorizes to preach his gospel to heal the sick, to cast 
out devils, and to do all the other works which he himself 
was wont to do when he was upon earth ? And does he 
not, in the most positive manner, promise to be with these 
his preachers of the gospel, in these works, “always,” 
“ even unto the end of the world ?” If, then, our priests 
are not able to do these things, is not their want of power 
a positive proof either that they are impostors, not called 
to preach the gospel and not true believers in Jesus, or 
that he was himself an impostor and his promises worth 
nothing at all? If his promise was true, and if these 
priests were his true ministers of the gospel, would they 
not certainly be able to perform all the works that he so 




THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


54 r 


positively promised that they should perform? Was his 
promise a lie, then, or are our priests all impostors ? If, 
on the other hand, those devils do not any longer infest the 
bodies of men and of swine, when did they cease to do so, 
and what caused them to cease ? Does the nature of any 
living creature ever entirely change ? If not, and if it was 
ever the nature of devils to infest the bodies of men and 
of swine, would it not still be their nature to do the same ? 
And why did Jesus include the casting out of devils among 
the works that were to continue to be done “ even unto the 
end of the world,” if devils were not to continue thus long 
to infest the bodies of men ? Could they continue thus 
to be cast out after there had ceased # to be any to cast out? 
Jesus says that they shall and that they will continue thus- 
long to be cast out; and, in saying this, he virtually declares 
that they shall and will continue to infest the bodies of 
men “ even unto the end of the world.” Does he lie when 
he says this, or do those champions of the Bible lie who 
declare that devils have already ceased to infest the bodies 
of men? Finally, where are those devils now, in whab 
are they occupied, how do they manage to make a livings 
and what proof have we that our priests know anything; 
about them ? May not these priests themselves be in¬ 
fested with them ? 

If the man whose case we are now considering—or,, 
rather, if one of your own neighbors were new to assert 
that his body was inhabited by a whole nation of intelli¬ 
gent beings, would you believe his assertion to be literally 
true ? If not, how can you believe in the literal truth of 
an exactly similar assertion that reaches you through a 
thousand extremely doubtful hearsays? Does a false story 
ever become true, or an incredible one ever become 
credible, by passing through many doubtful hands before 
it reaches you? Can you believe all the absurd and in¬ 
credible stories of the Bible and still have any just claim 
to intelligence and consistency ? 

I have now considered the devil or Satan of the Biblfc 


548 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


in four different forms of being or phases of character; 
and these, I believe, are all the forms of being or phases 
of character under which he presents himself in the entire 
Bible. There is, indeed, a fifth form or phase under which 
he now quite commonly presents himself. This is that of 
an invisible and intangible spirit, indefinitely expanded, 
wonderfully intelligent at every point in its entire extent, 
but entirely destitute of body, of parts, and of shape. 
This form or phase, however, seems to be much more 
modern than any portion of the Bible. The first of his 
four Bible forms, is that of a pagan god. In this form he 
may be a living bull, a living man, a golden calf, a carved 
image, a serpent, a monkey, an elephant, or any other ob¬ 
ject of idolatrous worship. His second form is that of a 
mere adversary. In this form, he may be any man or even 
God himself. His third form is that of a hideous monster, 
the form of whose body is constantly changing, some¬ 
times being that of a winged dragon, sometimes that of a 
man with horns, split hoofs, and a spear-shaped tail, etc. 
In this form he possesses great intelligence and great 
power, demoralizes most of God’s people and takes them 
to hell, and keeps God himself, as it were, in hot water all 
the time. By entirely taking away his body in this form, 
and indefinitely expanding what is left of him—if, indeed, 
anything at all be left—we have him in his fifth or most 
modern form, which I have already described, and in which 
he is now most popular with his allies, the priests. His 
fourth form is that of a microscopic parasite that infests 
the bodies of men and of swine. The first two of these 
four Bible forms pertain to the Old Testament and to the 
Jews, and involve nothing either absurd or incredible. 
The other two pertain to the New Testament and to the 
Christians, and involve the very climax both of absurdity 
and of incredibility. 

The Bible contains many other passages in which the 
devil, either as one individual or as many, is mentioned. 
In every one of these passages, however, he falls under 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


549 


some one of these four forms just described. I need not, 
therefore, notice any more of them. Indeed, most of them 
appear only in extremely silly and incredible stories which 
were evidently composed and written by very ignorant and 
superstitious men, for the benefit, or, rather, for the de¬ 
ceiving and the enslaving of men still more ignorant and 
superstitious. Concerning most of the instances, too, in 
which the devil, in any form and in any number, has ap¬ 
peared upon the stage, the writers of the Bible give utterly 
irreconcilable accounts. I have shown that they do this in 
the case which we have just had under consideration. In¬ 
deed, to me, the whole subject of the devil seems so 
ridiculous that I have found myself unable to treat it with 
that degree of seriousness which the priests, the devil’s 
best friends, would fain have us believe that it demands. 
To so ridiculous a subject, ridicule alone seems to be ap¬ 
propriate. Among intelligent people, the doctrines both 
of devils and witches, although both are clearly taught, 
and equally so, in the Bible, have long since been rejected 
as degrading remnants of the ignorance and the supersti¬ 
tion of the dark ages. Even many of our ministers of the 
gospel, fearfully hardened though they generally are, no 
longer have the face to preach either the doctrines of devils 
or of witches to intelligent congregations. The preaching 
of any of these doctrines is now neither demanded nor tol¬ 
erated by any except those who, in intelligence, are at 
least a century behind the times. If, then, you believe 
any of the witch stories, or any of the devil stories of the 
Bible, you may be sure that your intelligence is of a very 
low order. 

In the beginning of this lecture, I promised to show 
that the Bible gives the devil a much better moral char¬ 
acter than it gives God himself. I will now fulfil this 
promise by closing with a parallel between the moral 
characters of these two most notable personages. This 
parallel is from the pen of our poet-devil, from whose 
writings I have already several times quoted : 


550 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


“ Both God and myself, as you doubtless all know, 
Were chronic old bachelors, long time ago ; 

Indeed, if I do not most sadly forget, 

We are both of us chronic old bachelors yet— 

I know that I am, and I cannot recall 
Such fact as God’s having been married at all. 

And yet, I suppose, ’tis unknown to no one, 

That Jesus was this same old bachelor’s son ; 

That Mary, betrothed though she was to another, 

Became of this bachelor’s child the fond mother. 

And now if God was, indeed, Jesus’s pa, 

And never was married to Jesus’s ma, 

I’m sure I cannot, for the life of me, see 
How such a relation could possibly be, 

And not be adult’rous, as much as ’tis when 
Wives now are made mothers by bachelor men. 

Hence God is convicted, you plainly do see, 

Of adult’ry, which is not e’en charged against me. 

“ And then, when you come to the murderers’ list, 
His name will be found, while my own will be missed— 
Examine the records, and then you will see 
That murder hath never been charged against me. 

But these very records abundantly show 
A host of foul murders against m 3 * great foe— 

Whole nations at once, both the young and the old, 

He’s slain for mere sport, or for land, or for gold. 

Men, women, and children thus slain in one day, 

33y him, have been left to rot just where they lay; 

And while their bones there have grown white in the sun, 
Their butcher’s been praised as the Merciful One, 

And I have been cursed as man’s natural foe, 

Although, as I’ve said, there is no one can show 
That even amid the most desperate strife, 

I ever deprived any man of his life. 

^Now this is unfair, as you see at a glance, 

Yet never before have I had a fair chance 
To show up the facts and to prove that no blame 


THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 551 

Hath ever been justly attached to my name. 

But now the just judges who hear me to-day, 

O’er whom only truth, mighty truth, can have sway, 

Will free me, I’m sure, from the terrible wrong 
Which churches and priests have inflicted so long. 

Then forth there will gleam, from the vast page of fame, 
What heaven once honored, my great angel name; 

And then in the splendor of truth growing bright, 

My face will resume its long, long hidden light. 

I once, as you know, was the bright morning star, 

Of heaven’s whole host, the most brilliant by far; 

And such I still hope in the future to be, 

When justice, full justice, hath been done to me. 

“ The priests have oft called me the father of lies, 
But charges unfounded like this I despise; 

Indeed, the whole army of priests I defy 
To prove that I ever told even one lie; 

Or ever encouraged my friends to deceive, 

Or tell what themselves did not fully believe. 

If they will do this, I will then show them ten, 

By God himself told to his own chosen men; 

And hundreds, perhaps, which lie’s had others tell— 
Great whopper lies, too, never equaled in hell. 

“ ’Tis a fact, w r hicli no priest will attempt to dispute, 
That God showed to Adam a certain rare fruit 
Which beat every other, in qualities fine, 

But which, for man’s table, he did not design. 

That fruit, for some reason, I never knew what, 

Was placed by the Lord in so central a spot, 

That Adam and Eve found it right in their way, 

As daily they went to their labor or play. 

Hence God grew uneasy lest they should forget, 

And eat all these luscious fall pippins up yet; 

He, therefore declared, with a terrible oath, 

That he, without mercy, would murder them both 
The day they should venture so much as to bite 
'The fruit that thus temptingly hung in their sight. 


552 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


“ This frightened old Adam, a coward at best. 

And put the fruit question with him quite at rest; 

But not so with Eve, as we elsewhere have seen, 

She could not believe that the Lord was so mean, 

So horribly cruel, so wanting in sense, 

As thus to kill both for so slight an offense. 

She firmly believed that the Lord was but joking, 

And hence after tea, while old Adam sat smoking, 

She took her pet serpent and went, you all know, 

To that very tree which had tempted her so. 

She could not imagine just what ’twas to die, 

And said she’d find out, or she’d like to know why; 

Then, urged by the serpent, as elsewhere I’ve said, 

She plucked a fall pijipin and ate it like bread. 

Then feeling at once that the fruit did her good, 

She took some to Adam as soon as she could, 

She hoped that this fruit, so delicious and mellow, 

Would tend to improve this indecent old fellow. 

And he growing bolder than ever before, 

Quick bolted the lot, and was eager for more, 

For he, too, perceived that it opened their eyes, 

And made them more modest, as well as more wise, 

And God did not do as he’d sworn that he would, 

But let them live on just as long as they could; 

And now, if they wish, let my enemies try 
To prove against me so enormous a lie, 

“ Again, the Lord swore to old Moses and band 
To lead them all safe to # a fair happy land 
He had them all start, but, because of the tears, 

He caused them to wander for forty long years; 

Indeed, all his promises, solemnly spoken, 

And all of his oaths were remorselessly broken ; 

He went so far e’en as to boast that their woe 

Should cause them his base * breach of promise ’ to know; 

That far from possessing a land good and fair, 

Their bones should there bleach in the wild desert air. 



THE DEVIL OB SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


553 


And will my worst enemies venture to say 
That ever I lied in so monstrous a way ? 

“For helping plague Job, I have suffered much blame, 
But who, in my place, would have not done the same ? 

The part I then acted, you all understand, 

I acted for God, by his own strict command ; 

And, let my foes blame me as much as they may, 

’Twas his place to order and mine to obey. 

If my part was wrong, was not his part still worse ? 

Did he not compel me to cause Job to curse ? 

I simply did that which he strictly directed, 

And set Job to cursing; what else was expected? 

But how the false story did ever get out, 

Concerning Job’s patience, is mingled with doubt; 

For greater impatience I never have known 
Than was by that famous old gentleman shown. 

He cursed like a sailor till hustled right out 
By Madame Job’s orders, who had not a doubt 
That Joby, in sky-larking somewhere about, 

A plague had contracted, too dreadful to name, 

But which was attended with uttermost shame, 

And greatly she feared he might give her the same. 

She e’en went so far as to wish, so they say. 

That God would at once put him out of the way ; 

Would give her a chance to secure a new man, 

For capturing whom she e’en then had a plan; 

She seemed, too, to think that God promptly would do it, 
If Job should curse him , and thus anger him to it. 

She therefore urged Job just to let himself loose, 

To curse God like thunder and heap such abuse 
On him as would leave him no power to refrain, 

And thus, for her sake, try to get himself slain. 

But Job, when her object was well understood, 

Declared he’d not peg out that way if he could; 

He’d live just to spite her, and now you know why 
He did not curse God , just as well as do I. 

“ But letting this pass, I’ll describe with sad heart 


554 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


A drama in which God assigned me a part, 

And forced me to act it, just as he directed, 

Although, at the first, I most strongly objected. 

I told him 5 1would injure my character so 

That men would all hate me, where’er I might go; 

But no one, he said, but myself, could he trust 
This part to perform, and that, therefore, I must. 

“ The first thing assigned was to tempt his own son, 
And see how well qualified he was to run 
The race set before him, and this you’re aware, 
Demanded great courage as well as great care. 

This task I accomplished as well as I could, 

But Jesus stood firm, as I knew that he would; 

And yet, though my conduct he did not think right, 

His language to me was all kind and polite. 

“ The next thing assigned me, I would not agree 
To do until God had long reasoned with me. 

He said ’twas a part of his plan of salvation, 

And that, if I failed him, he’d let all creation 
March straight into hell, without further ado, 

And, knowing full well that all this was quite true, 

I did as he wished, and you now plainly see 
You owe your salvation to none more than me. 

But how did I help, you would gladly be knowing, 

To start God’s machine of salvation to going? 

“ I crawled into Judas Iscariot, one day, 

And showed him just how he could make Jesus pay— 
Just how from this business, this Christ enterprise, 

He could fill his own pockets, if he were but wise ; 

And Judas, a Yankee, took in, at a flash, 

The plan I proposed, and was soon flush of cash. 

And this was the part that God forced me to take, 
Declaring his plan of salvation at stake— 

Declaring my aid must be promptly supplied, 

Or men to damnation would all be let slide. 

He said that his son must be crucified then— 

Must die like a rogue for the good of all men— 



THE DEVIL OR SATAN OF THE BIBLE. 


555 


That since he’d adopted this horrible plan, 

On none other would he consent to save man. 

He could not consistently pardon e’en one, 

He said, till the people should murder his son; 

That I, by assisting them kindly in this, 

Would give them a title to mansions of bliss., 

He said that so soon as this deed should be done, 
His pard’ning machine would be started to run ; 

And that, by performing the part he’d assigned, 

The Savior I’d be of the whole human kind. 

“I could not conceive how this one murder more 
Could pard’ning make easier than ’twas just before ; 
But God said it would, and I dared not reply, 

When Jesus was doomed, in this manner to die; 

Nor when God required me, without more delay, 

To enter Saint Judas and make him betray 
The innocent Jesus, and thus bring about 
His death, which the people could not do without. 
My part I disliked, but since hell was then crammed 
With men of all nations, eternally damned— 

Since room I could find for no further supplies, 

I entered at last into this enterprise. 

“My work I did well, and Saint Judas did his, 
And I cannot yet understand why it is 
That Jesus is worshiped, while Judas and I 
Are treated like rogues, or in silence passed by. 
’Twas needful that Jesus should perish just thus, 

And this would have failed, had it not been for us. 
Since heaven depended upon us all three, 

You ought to praise Judas, and Jesus, and me 
And then, on reflection, no one can refuse 
The portion of praise justly due to the Jews; 

For had it not been for the aid of this nation, 

What would have become of God’s plan of salvation ? 
Had no one been willing that victim to slay, 

What would you be doing for hell-room to-day ? 

If aught there was wrong in thus murd’ring his son, 


556 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


That wrong was God’s own, for he had the deed done; 
And we were but instruments, helpless, you see, 

And bound to do just what he chose to decree. 

His might, then upon us, we could not withstand, 

Nor could we escape his omnipotent hand; 

Indeed, there’s no creature beneath the bright sun, 
Can thwart what the Lord hath resolved to have done. 
His infinite presence all nature doth fill, 

And nothing can happen which he doth not will; 
Then why do you link with my much abused name 
Those evils for which he alone is to blame ? 

Why do you thus wrongfully persecute me 
For being just what he hath made me to be ? 

My nature he fixed, and it seems very strange 
That I should be cursed for what I cannot change. 

As well might you curse for their nature divine, 

The angels of light, as to curse me for mine. 

And now having done, to my mythical hell, 

I gladly return—fare ye well; fare ye well! 




THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 


557 


LECTURE SIXTEENTH 

THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 

Although, in preceding lectures, I have often incident¬ 
ally noticed both the heaven and the hell of the Bible, yet, 
on account of the immense importance usually attached to 
these two utterly mythical institutions, I have thought 
better to devote an entire lecture to the consideration of 
them alone. In this consideration, I shall find it necessary 
to repeat many things which, as I have just stated, have 
already been incidentally given in former lectures. In¬ 
deed, having from the start intended to make every one of 
the lectures of this entire course, to some extent at least, 
complete in itself, I have often found it necessary to no¬ 
tice the same things in several different lectures. The 
things thus repeated, however, are usually of so great im¬ 
portance that they cannot be noticed too frequently. 

The word heaven is derived from the verb heave , and, 
primarily, means something raised, bulged, or heaved up, 
as the sky seems to be, and as the ancients believed that 
it actually was. Indeed, the sky, which, as I have else¬ 
where said, was supposed by the ancients to be a solid 
body or firmament, being by far the most prominent object 
thus heaved up, came finally to be designated specially as 
the “ heaved ,” or, as the word was formerly written, the 
“ heave-en” that is, the thing heaved or bulged up. By a 
slight contraction, the old word heave-en becomes our 
present word heaven, which, with a few priestly additions, 
still retains its original signification. We always think 


558 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


and speak of heaven as something that is up —as some¬ 
thing heaved or bulged outward from the earth, just as 
the shell of an egg is heaved or bulged up or outward 
from the yolk. We never think or speak of heaven as 
something depressed —as something on a level with us, or 
below us. 

The first verse of the Bible says : “ In the beginning 

God created the heaven and the earth.” From this, it is 
clear that the heaven, like the earth, was something that 
had to be made ; that the heaven and the earth are of the 
same age that, until it was thus made , there was no such 
thing, no such place in existence, as the heaven; that, 
during the entire eternity which, of necessity, must have 
preceded the creation, God could not possibly have had 
any such place as the heaven in which to dwell; and that, 
consequently, the heaven is not properly the place of 
God’s abode. Of necessity, his place of abode must be at 
least as old and at least as extensive as is he himself. If, in¬ 
deed, he himself be infinite in both his extent and his 
duration, so, of necessity, must his place of abode be. 
Space alone, in its entirety, fills this description. The 
little heaven of the Bible, made at the same time with the 
earth and in connection with it, fills no part of the de¬ 
scription. 

What the heaven, as here mentioned, was, it is some¬ 
what difficult to determine. As we have already seen, it 
was something that was made, the .same as was the earth. * 
It could not have been space, since, from its very nature, 
this is necessarily uncreated and eternal. Neither could 
it have been the firmament or solid blue sky, since this 
was not'made till the next day. Being begun with a small 
letter, and being limited by the particle the, the word can¬ 
not be the name of any particular object, or of any partic¬ 
ular place. It is bound to be a common noun, and it 
seems to have been applied, in a general way, to the at¬ 
mosphere, and all else that seemed to be heaved up from 
the earth. In other words, it seems to have been the comple- 



THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 559 

ment of the earth—all that there then was of the universe, 
except the solid body of the earth herself. As we pro¬ 
ceed, this view will become still more clear. Since the 
heaven was the thing heaved up, it could not have existed 
till the earth was made for it to be heaved up from. 

“ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst 
of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the 
waters. And God made the firmament, and divided 
the waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. 
And God called the firmament Heaven” (Gen. i, 6-8). 
Here we have a new Heaven or heaved up object which is 
much more definite than was the general heaven or heaved 
up portion of the universe which was made on the day be¬ 
fore. This new word Heaven, being begun with a capital 
letter, and being unaccompanied by any limiting particle, 
is evidently a proper noun—a name applied to some par¬ 
ticular place or to some particular object. What that 
particular place or that particular object was, we are 
clearly informed. It was simply the firmament or solid 
sky which was supposed to be heaved up, like a vast in¬ 
verted bowl, over a flat and stationary earth, and to sepa¬ 
rate the waters which were on the surface of the earth 
from certain other equally vast quantities of water which 
were supposed to have been placed, by God himself, some¬ 
where far above the surface of the earth. In other words, 
Heaven was simply the proper name of that particular 
heaved up object which, because of its supposed-to-be 
peculiarly firm or solid nature, was usually called the 
firmament or supporter—the supporter of vast bodies of 
water, which were placed upon its upper surface, and of 
the sun, moon, and stars which, to keep them from falling, 
were set or stuck, like nails, into its under surface. You 
will please keep in mind all these things. 

“ And God said, Let there be light in the firmament of 
the heaven . . . And God made two great lights; the 
greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the 


560 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


niglit; he made the stars also. And God set them in the 
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth ” 
(Gen. i, 14-17). In these passages, we twice find the 
expression “ the firmament of the heaven.” Since, how¬ 
ever, as I have already shown, Heaven is simply another 
name of the firmament or solid sky, this expression will 
evidently retain the same meaning if rendered, “the 
Heaven of the heaven .” Or since, in the sense in which it is 
first used in the Bible, the word heaven is usually em¬ 
ployed in the plural, the expression will evidently still 
retain the same meaning if rendered, “the Heaven of 
the heavens /’ or with the particle the omitted, as it usually 
is, “ the Heaven of heavens .” In this latter form, the ex¬ 
pression is, indeed, often used in the Bible ; and when 
thus used, it means simply the firm or solid portion of the 
general heaven or heaved up portion of the universe; 
and, since this solid portion was supposed to be above all 
the other portions, the expression also evidently means, 
“the highest heaven,” or “the highest part of heaven.” All 
Bible critics, I believe, agree that this view is correct. 

From all of this, it is evident that the firmament—the 
limited or special Heaven which was made on the second 
day, was simply the highest and firmest part—the roof or 
eovering, as it were, of the great heaved up mass of at¬ 
mosphere, clouds, etc., that constituted the general heaven 
(or heavens) which was made on the first day. The form of 
this firmament—this highest Heaven, this Heaven of 
heavens, this roof of heaven—was that of an immense 
bowl or hollow hemisphere inverted over a flat and sta¬ 
tionary earth. Indeed, it was nothing more nor less than 
that which we now call the sky, and which, although it is 
now known to be nothing but the color of the atmos¬ 
phere that surrounds us, we seem to see, like a vast in¬ 
verted blue bowl, resting with its brim or edge, called the 
horizon, upon the earth. As we have already seen, there 
were supposed to be, on the upper or convex surface of 
this firmament, vast bodies of water; while, to keep them 



THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 561 


from falling down upon the earth, the sun, the moon, and 
the stars were stuck like nails into its under or concave 
surface. Between the earth and the under surface of this 
concavo-convex firmament, there was a vast open space oc¬ 
cupied only by the atmosphere, the clouds, etc. It is evi¬ 
dently of this space that the author speaks when, in the 
twentieth verse, he says that the fowls “may fly above the 
earth in the open [or hollow part of the] firmament of 
heaven.” As we learn from the seventh and eighth chap¬ 
ters of Genesis, this firmament or heaven was also pro¬ 
vided with windows or valves which could be opened and 
closed at pleasure, and through which the waters which 
were above the firmament could be made to pour down 
upon the earth. 

We have now seen that the original design of the firma¬ 
ment or Heaven was to sustain the vast bodies of water 
which were supposed to be placed above it and all the 
heavenly bodies which were supposed to be set into its 
solid substance. It was entirely an after-thought of the 
Creator, or, rather of the priests, to make this Heaven the 
dwelling-place of the gods, and a later thought still to 
make it the abode of human beings after death. This 
Heaven was supposed to be only a few thousand feet above 
the surface of the earth. Many nations, therefore, had 
certain mountains, the summits of which w r ere supposed, 
especially by the ignorant, who, from superstitious fear, 
never ascended them, to reach Heaven, or, at least, to ap¬ 
proach it so near that the gods were wont to “ step down 
and out ” of it upon them to meet their special favorites, 
the priests, who alone ventured to seek those sacred sum¬ 
mits. Jehovah is said to have often thus stepped “ down 
and out ” of this Heaven to meet his great favorite, the 
cunning and unscrupulous old Moses, upon the top of 
Mount Sinai, which is one of the most noted god-moun¬ 
tains mentioned in the Bible. Those people, however, 
whose countries lay entirely in the plains, could not thus 
reach heaven, or even come within speaking distance 


562 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


of the gods that dwell therein. In order to attain 
either of these very desirable objects, therefore, these 
people had to resort to the building of very high towers 
whose tops should “ reach unto heaven;” and, as we learn 
from the eleventh chapter of Genesis, even this extremely 
slow and expensive method was not always attended with 
the success which so laudable an undertaking deserved. 

“ And they said, Go to, let us build us ... a tower 
whose top may reach unto heaven” (Gen. xi: 4). This 
shows conclusively that those people believed Heaven to 
be at no great distance above the earth; that they really 
expected to reach Heaven with their tower. Had they be¬ 
lieved that the distance to Heaven was very great, they 
would surely not have thus foolishly attempted to reach 
that place by means of such a tower. From the sixth and 
the seventh verses, we learn that God also fully believed 
that Heaven was directly over the earth, and at no great 
distance from it; and that, if permitted to go on with their 
work* those people actually would reach Heaven with their 
tower. When, therefore, he had come down and examined 
the tower, of which it seems that he had heard, but which 
he had never before seen, he appeared to be greatly 
alarmed at the near approach of those enterprising people 
to success in their stupendous undertaking. Almost in 
despair, therefore, he exclaimed: “ Behold, . . . now 

nothing will be restrained from them, which they have 
imagined to doand, believing that there was no time to 
be lost, he said: “ Go to, let us [himself and the other 
gods] go down and there confound their language, that 
they may not understand one another’s speech.” By thus 
confounding their language, he put a stop to their work 
which he evidently believed would, if permitted to be 
completed, enable them to reach Heaven, and to cause 
him and the other gods an immense amount of trouble if 
not of danger. 

Had those people lived in a mountainous country, they 
would doubtless have tried to ascertain the height of 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 


563 


Heaven, by ascending a mountain, before undertaking to- 
reach it by means of such a tower. Living, however, a& 
they did, in a plain, they had no means of obtaining this 
extremely important information. Their ignorance, there¬ 
fore, in regard to this matter, was very natural and very 
pardonable. But what are we to say in regard to God’s 
equal ignorance in regard to this same matter ? Since he 
claimed to have made both Heaven and earth, should he 
not have had a more nearly correct idea in regard to their 
distance apart? If he had not fully believed that they 
w r ere so near together that, if let alone, the people, by 
means of their tower, actually could reach Heaven, would 
he have thus so incontinently come down and stopped 
their work by confounding their language ? He now knows- 
that men could never possibly build a tower high enough 
to reach Heaven. No matter, then, how high men might 
now build a tower, his fears of their thus reaching Heaven 
w T ould not be in the least excited, and the builders might 
rest assured that he would never go to the trouble of com¬ 
ing down to stop their work by confounding their lan¬ 
guage. 

As to the expression, “ Go to,” which, in this story, we 
find used both by the tower builders and by God himself, 
it constituted a kind of slang which, when put in the 
mouth of a God, was about as dignified as would be the- 
expressions, “ You bet,” “ Bully for you,” “ How is that 
for high ?” etc. Had the author been an average Ameri¬ 
can waiter, and especially a Californian, he would doubt¬ 
less have put some of these expressions into the mouth of 
his God. I once knew a Californian lady who, having just 
experienced religion at a camp-meeting, and being asked 
how she felt, joyfully exclaimed : “ Glory to God! I feel 
just bully ! You bet I do! ” What a Bible she could liav© 
written! 

“ Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomor¬ 
rah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven 
(Gen. xix, 24). From this passage we learn three very 


564 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


important facts. The first of these is that heaven was 
directly over Sodom and Gomorrah, and at no very great 
height above them. Had it not been so situated, the fire 
and brimstone which fell from it would not have fallen 
upon those two unfortunate cities. The second is that, by 
this time, God had permanently taken up his abode in 
heaven, directly over those two cities. The third and last 
is that heaven was then filled with fire and brimstone. 
You will carefully notice that the brimstone and fire came 
“from the Lord, out of heaven .” Unless, therefore, the 
champions of the Bible can prove that all the fire and brim¬ 
stone of heaven were exhausted on the occasion in question 
they are bound to admit that the place is still bountifully 
supplied with those two commodities so essential to the 
Christian Religion. In the absence of this proof, which 
can never be given, will these champions please inform us 
in what respect heaven differs from hell, when both places 
are so bountifully supplied with fire and brimstone ? 

Prom the following passages, we likewise learn that 
heaven was directly over the earth, or, at least, over cer¬ 
tain portions of it, and at so small a height that dews and 
rain could fall from heaven upon the earth. “ Therefore 
God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the 
earth, and plenty of corn and wine ” (Gen. xxvii, 28). 
“ But the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of 
hills and valleys, and drinketh the water of the rain of 
heaven. And then the Lord’s wrath be kindled against 
you, and he shut up the heaven, that there be no rain” 
(Deut. xii, 11,17). “ And the windows of heaven were 

opened. And the rain was upon the earth forty days and 
forty nights” (Gen. vii, 11, 12). “The fountains also of 
the deep, and the windows of heaven were stopped, and 
the rain from heaven was restrained ” (Gen. viii, 2). From 
these same passages we also learn that dews and rains 
come directly from heaven, which can be opened at pleasure 
to let them fall, or closed to prevent them from falling. 
These dews and rains, as we learn from many other pas- 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 


565 


sages of the Bible, are supplied from those vast bodies of 
water which, on the second day of creation, were placed 
on the upper surface of the firmament or heaven. Let the 
champions of the Bible, therefore, take heed lest they be 
led from a belief in this doctrine into a belief that, as 
taught by the scientists of the present day, dews and rain 
fall simply from the atmosphere, which cannot be opened 
and closed at pleasure, and that they are supplied from 
water drawn up from the earth in the form of vapor, and 
not from vast reservoirs, placed at the time of an imaginary 
creation, on the upper surface of an imaginary heaven. 
Bemember that scientists are all Infidels and that they all 
go to hell. 

In former lectures, I have shown that the word firma¬ 
ment, w r hich, you know, is simply another name for heaven, 
in merely an Anglicized form of the Latin Jlrmamentum, 
which means a solid structure used as a foundation or 
support, as something to render firm or stable whatever 
was placed upon it. As used in the Bible, this Anglicized 
form of the word everywhere still retains its original sig¬ 
nification ; everywhere still involves the ideas of substance 
and solidity. The firmament or heaven of the Bible had, 
of necessity, to be a wonderfully substantial structure to 
support the almost inconceivably vast weight of the 
immense oceans of water that were placed upon it, and of 
the sun, the moon, and the stars that were set like nails 
into it. Besides these immense burdens, which, from the 
beginning, were placed upon the firmament or Heaven, it 
was afterwards made to bear also the additional weight of 
God himself, of his throne, of his mighty city, the New 
Jerusalem, and of all his innumerable multitudes of 
beasts, of saints, and of angels. These latter facts we 
learn from the following, and from many other similar 
passages : “ And they saw the God of Israel [every nation 

had a god or gods of its own] ; and there was under his 
feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire-stone, and as it 
were the body of heaven in his clearness ” (Ex. xxiv, 10). 


566 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


“And above the firmament that was over their heads was 
the likeness of a throne, as the ajDpearance of a sapphire- 
stone : and upon the likeness of the throne was the likeness 
as the ajDpearance of a man above upon it ” (Ezek. i, 26). 
“After this I looked, and behold a door was opened in 
heaven : . . . And immediately I was in the spirit: and 
behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the 
throne. . . . And I beheld, and heard the voice of many 
angels [What were they?] round about the throne, and 
the beasts [What kind of beasts were they, and how came 
they to be in heaven? Do all beasts go to heaven?], and 
the elders [Who were they?]: and the number of them 
£of the beasts, of course, since so many elders had cer¬ 
tainly as yet never reached heaven] was ten thousand 
times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands. . . . 
And I heard the number of them which were sealed : and 
there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand 
of all the tribes of the children of Israel. . . . After 
this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man 
could number [Why not?], of all nations, and kindreds, 
and people, and tongues, stood before the throne. . . . 
And he carried me away in the spirit to a great and high 
mountain [What mountain was it ?], and showed me [it 
seems that they had to get nearer to Heaven in order the 
better to see these things] that great city [It was a whop¬ 
per, as we shall yet see], the holy Jerusalem, descending 
out of heaven from God [they must have had it suspended 
by a very strong cable]. And the city lieth four-square, 
and the length is as large as the breadth: and he meas¬ 
ured the city with the reed [How long did it take him ?], 
twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth 
and the height of it are equal. And he measured the w all 
thereof an hundred and forty and four cubits. . . . And 
the building of the wall of it was of Jasper : and the city 
was pure gold, like unto clear glass ” [a precious city, and 
•a strange kind of gold! ] (Rev. ix, 1, 2; v, 11; vii, 4, 9 ; 
;xxi, 10-18). 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 567 

The scene, described in the first of these passages, is 
said to have been beheld by several persons from the top 
of Mount Sinai. In this elevated position, those persons 
were so near Heaven that, with their natural eyes, they 
could distinctly see the various objects which it contained. 
All the other scenes described—except the descending of 
the New Jerusalem out of Heaven—are said to have been 
beheld, some by Ezekiel and the others by John, from low 
ground. In this position, they were so far from Heaven 
that, in order to distinctly see the objects which it con¬ 
tained, they had to go into a trance, and, thereby, become 
what we now call clairvoyants or seeing mediums. 

As to “ that great city, the holy Jerusalem,” it must, 
indeed, have been a stupendous and wonderfully beauti¬ 
ful structure. Being ‘‘twelve thousand furlongs” in each 
of its three dimensions, it must, of course, have been 
1,500 miles in length, 1,500 miles in height, and 1,500 miles 
in breadth. It must have covered an area of ,2250,000 
square miles on the upper surface of the firmament or 
solid blue sky on which it rested. Tliis area was equal to 
that of about two-thirds of the whole United States, and 
about 4,000 times greater than that covered by the city of 
London. The cubical contents of that city must have 
equaled 1,500x1,500x1,500=8,375,000,000 cubic miles. Al¬ 
lowing 375,000,000 cubic miles to have been occupied by 
streets, building materials, etc., we have 3,000,000,000 
cubic miles or 441,593,856,000,000,000,000 cubic feet to be 
occupied by the inhabitants. Allowing to each inhabi¬ 
tant, whether a saint, an angel, or a beast, a room ten feet 
in each of its three dimensions, or 1,000 cubic feet of 
space, we find room in that city for 441,593,856,000,000,000 
inhabitants. This would, indeed, be a “ great multitude 
which no man could number,” and would require the earth 
a long time to produce them, if they were, to any consid¬ 
erable extent, composed of human beings, only a very 
small percentage of whom, according to all orthodox 
teachings, ever succeed in reaching heaven. What an 


568 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


enormous city liell must be to contain nine-tenths or more? 
of the whole human race ! 

And “ that great city, the holy Jerusalem,” streets and 
all, “was pure gold , like unto clear glass .” How wonder¬ 
fully strong, then, must the firmament or blue sky have 
been to sustain the inconceivably immense weight of this 
vast city of gold, in addition to the weight of the mighty 
masses of waters which were also placed upon it, and that 
of the sun, the moon, and the stars which, to keep them 
from falling down upon the earth, were set or stuck 
into it! 

When we reflect that the Lord had once dwelt all alone, 
for several centuries, in a goods-box, called “ the ark of 
the covenant,” which was only about 4 feet long, 2 1-2 feet 
wide, and 2 1-2 feet high, we cannot help feeling somewhat 
astonished at the immensity and the costliness of the man¬ 
sion in which we now find him residing, and the vastness 
and the varieties of the multitudes by which we now find 
him surrounded. We are also somewhat astonished to 
learn that this great city “had a ivall great and high.” 
Against what enemy was that wall designed to be a pro¬ 
tection ? Or was it designed simply to prevent God’s per¬ 
forming beasts, saints, etc., from escaping and wandering 
off into space? It must have been designed for some use¬ 
ful purpose. 

When we consider the almost inconceivable vastness 
and splendor of the great city in question, and the almost 
utter innumerability of the “ great multitude ... of all 
nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues,” that in¬ 
habit its golden mansions, we cannot help feeling some¬ 
what astonished as well as disgusted when we learn that 
all of its offices, honors, and emoluments are conferred 
upon the gold-loving, bigoted, intolerant, proslavery, po- 
lygmous Jews alone—when we learn that the twelves gates 
of its mighty wall are named after twelve Jews; when we 
learn that the twelve foundations of this same wonderful 
wall are named after twelve other Jews; when we learn 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 


569 


that the twelve principal thrones, next to that of God him¬ 
self, are occupied by these same last named twelve Jews ; 
when, in short, we learn that none but Jews have anything 
to do in its public affairs, or possess any rights that a Jew 
is bound to respect; and when we learn that even to Jew¬ 
ish beasts are granted far more honorable positions than 
are granted to any of the “ great multitude which no man 
could number,” of other nations. For my own part, I 
would prefer some other country. 

When we consider that pearls are obtained from oys¬ 
ters, we cannot help feeling somewhat astonished when we 
learn that each one of the twelve massive gates of that 
wonderful wall was composed of a single pearl. What 
monstrous oysters they must have been that produced 
those wonderful pearls! Where were those oysters found, 
and who fished for them ? Besides this, where did the 
builders of that city procure the many million cubic miles 
of „pure gold, like unto clear glass,” and of precious 
stones of which it and its wonderful walls were composed ? 
Finally, what became of that wonderful city and all its 
costly materials, its innumerable multitude of inhabi¬ 
tants, etc., when ungodly science dissipated into empty- 
space the firmament or solid sky on which it rested ? Was 
it also reduced to the same utterly empty condition ? If 
not, where is it now, what sustains it in space, and by 
what means can it now be reached ? To all of these ques¬ 
tions, it may be answered that this was a figurative and 
not a real city. Admitting, however, that it was a figura¬ 
tive and not a real city, then, of necessity, its inhabitants, 
saints, angels, beasts, God, and all, were figurative and not 
real inhabitants. Where, then, and what was the real city 
of which this city was a figure ? Where is that real city 
now, how is it sustained in space, and by what means can 
it be reached ? You cannot answer any of these ques¬ 
tions, and if you could, you would only contradict the 
Bible, which certainly teaches that the “ holy Jerusalem ” 
in question was a real city. 


570 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


“ Specially the day that thou stoodest before the Lord 
thy God in Horeb. . . . And ye came near and stood 
under the mountain; and the mountain burned with fire 
unto ther midst of heaven ” (Deut. iv, 10,11). Here we have 
a mountain, and that not a very high one, actually reaching 
“unto the midst of heaven.” This is rendered still more 
clear by the thirty-sixth verse, which says: “ Out of 

heaven he made thee to hear his voice , that he might in¬ 
struct thee ; and upon earth he shewed thee his great fire ; 
and thou heardest his words out of the midst of the fire” 
Here you see that the burning mountain in question so ex¬ 
tended into heaven that, while speaking “ out of heaven 
the Lord was also, at the same time, speaking “ out of the 
midst of the fire ” that “ burned upon earth ” on the summit 
of that mountain. Of necessity, then, heaven was still very 
near the earth. 

“Then the earth shook and trembled; the.foundations 
of heaven moved and shook, because he was wroth ” 
(2 Sam. xxii, 8). From this, we learn that heaven rested 
upon material foundations, and that the shaking and 
trembling of the earth caused these foundations of heaven 
also to move and to shake. This was all very natural. 
When we consider that the foundations of heaven were 
simply those portions of the firmament or solid sky which, 
like the brim or edge of a vast inverted bowl, rested upon 
the earth, we perceive, at once, that the shaking of the 
earth was bound to produce, at the same time, a similar 
shaking of the foundations of heaven. 

“ The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at 
his reproof” (Job xxvi, 11). Here, again, we have heaven 
with material foundations—with “ pillars ” which, in order 
to sustain heaven with all its immense burdens, had, of 
necessity, themselves to rest upon something solid and 
stationary like the earth. In the following passage, we 
have these foundations of heaven of a circular form, just 
as they should be, to correspond with the horizon of the 
present time, which is nothing more nor less than the 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 571 

modern name of these same supposed foundations. “ Thick 
clouds are a covering to him, that he seeth not; and he 
walketh in the circuit of heaven” (Job xxii, 14). 

“ Heaven and earth shall pass away ...” (Matt, xxiv, 
25). Here, and in many other places, heaven is repre¬ 
sented as something that is to pass away—to pass away, 
too, at the same time with the earth—as something that is 
incapable of remaining after the earth has passed away. 
This is all just as we should expect it to be. When we 
reflect that the foundations of heaven rest, like the brim 
of an inverted bowl, upon the flat surface of the earth, we 
can easily understand that heaven could no more remain 
in its place after the departure of the earth, than a bowl, 
inverted upon a table, could remain in its place after the 
departure of the table. Hence it is that, throughout the 
whole Bible; whenever the destruction of the earth is men¬ 
tioned, that of heaven is also mentioned as something that 
must, of necessity, occur at the same time. 

“ And the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, even as a 
fig-tree castetli her untimely figs, when she is shaken of a 
mighty wind. And the heaven departed as a scroll when 
it is rolled together” (Rev. vi, 13, 14). From these pas¬ 
sages, we learn that heaven is something into which the 
stars are set to keep them from falling upon the earth— 
something, however, from which they are capable of being 
shaken and made to come rattling down, like so many figs, 
upon the earth—something that is capable of remaining, 
standing all alone, after all the stars are thus shaken out 
of it; something, finally, that is capable of being rolled to¬ 
gether like a scroll and taken away. In 2 Pet. iii, 10-13, we 
find it described as something that is capable of being 
burned up, or at least dissolved by heat—as something 
that actually has been or is to be thus disposed of at the 
same time with the earth—as something that is capable of 
being replaced by a newer and better article of the same 
kind. 


572 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


All of these passages, and many others like them, prove, 
beyond all doubt, that the heaven of the Bible and of the 
Christian religion is nothing more nor less than the firma¬ 
ment or solid sky which the ancients, and even the people 
of comparatively modern times, believed to rest, like a vast 
inverted blue bowl, over the earth, which was supposed to 
be flat and stationary. Indeed, over half the inhabitants 
of the earth, including a great portion of the Christian 
Church, still believe in tliis heaven—in this form and con¬ 
dition of the earth. And this is the only heaven taught by 
the Bible, or by the Christian religion, as the abode of 
God, of angels, and of “the spirits of just men made per¬ 
fect.” This is the only heaven, too, ever taught by the 
pagans, from whom the Christians derive all of their 
religious ideas. Indeed, until about three hundred years 
ago, when she lost the power to bend all things to her own 
will, the Church was wont to burn as infidels and heretics 
all who were so imprudent as to express any doubt in re¬ 
gard to the real existence of this heaven, or to teach any 
truth of science inconsistent with that assumed real exist¬ 
ence. The priests very well knew that, if this heaven 
failed them, there was no room for any other, and that, 
consequently, their trade would be ruined. Their des¬ 
perate defense of this heaven, therefore, against the attacks 
of science, was entirely natural. 

When, however, by internal dissensions, the power of 
the church was partially broken—when scientists thus ob¬ 
tained a little respite from her deadly persecutions—they 
fully demonstrated, to the entire satisfaction of all intelli¬ 
gent persons, that no such heaven, no such firmament or solid 
sky, ever existed directly over a flat and stationary earth, 
or anywhere else. They demonstrated that what, to the 
unaided vision, seems to be a vast blue bowl inverted over 
the earth, and into which all the heavenly bodies seem to 
be set, is nothing more nor less than the color of the 
atmosphere by which we are immediately surrounded. 
They demonstrated that rain falls, from the clouds—from. 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 


573 


waters that rise from the earth in the form of vapor, and 
not, as taught in the Bible, from vast reservoirs placed at 
the time of creation on the upper surface of a firmament 
or solid sky. They demonstrated that, so far from being, 
as the Bible everywhere teaches that it is, a small, flat, and 
stationary body, supporting a solid sky or heaven, the 
earth is an immense globe revolving in space. They 
demonstrated that, so far from being, as the Bible 
everywhere teaches that they are, small bodies capa¬ 
ble of being all shaken down like so many figs upon 
the earth, the stars are mighty worlds revolving in space, 
many of them being millions of times larger than the 
earth. They demonstrated that, so far from being, as the 
Bible everywhere teaches that they are, all stuck, at an 
equal distance from the earth, into a solid sky or firma¬ 
ment to keep them from falling, these stars, with incon¬ 
ceivable velocity, 4 are rolling through space, at all imagin¬ 
able distances from the earth and from one another. 
Finally, by means of all these demonstrations, they also 
demonstrated the heaven of the Bible—the heaven of all 
religions—to be a mere priestly invention, imposed upon 
the ignorance of the people. In the presence of intelligent 
people, priests no longer even attempt to locate their 
heaven. 

As I have already said, the idea of utilizing this imag¬ 
inary heaven by making it the place of abode of human 
beings after death was entirely an after-thought, and of 
purely pagan origin. At first, only a few great heroes and 
other distinguished personages were elevated to this 
heaven, and even these, upon that elevation, ceased to be 
human beings and became star-gods, such as Jupiter, 
Mars, Yenus, Saturn, Mercury, etc. Afterwards, persons 
of less note came to be admitted into this heaven as the ser¬ 
vants or angels of these distinguished deified personages. 
Finally, so many persons, in no way distinguished for ex¬ 
cellence, were admitted, that it ceased to be any special 
honor to reach heaven. Any person, however worthless 


574 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


he might be, could gain admittance by simply professing 
to believe certain doctrines concerning certain gods and 
their offspring, and by helping to support the armies of 
priests who taught those doctrines. At the present time, 
the terms of admission into this now utterly exploded im¬ 
position are so extremely easy that the most ignorant and 
worthless wretches among us can secure tickets without 
the least difficulty and enter at pleasure. For obvious 
reasons, the terms of admission have always been fixed, 
the tickets sold, and all the other business pertaining to 
heaven and involving money, transacted by the priests 
alone, who were the inventors and who continue to be the 
sole proprietors of the wdiole concern. 

During the greater part of that portion of their history 
which is covered by the Old Testament, the Jews had very 
little idea of a future state of existence. All of their 
rewards and punishments were of a purely temporal char¬ 
acter. Not having any immortal souls to provide for, they 
did not need to utilize their imaginary firmament—their 
solid sky or heaven—as a place of abode for human beings 
after death. Not until some time after they were carried 
away as captives to Babylon, did any considerable portion 
of them adopt the purely pagan ideas of a future state of 
existence, and of the peopling of heaven with human 
beings. Those Jews who adopted these ideas of their 
pagan masters were called Pharisees, and were always 
afterwards noted for their disgusting bigotry and their un¬ 
compromising intolerance. The rest of the Jews, who 
were in the majority and who were called Sadducees, never 
did adopt these ideas at all. They remained a great body 
of infidels, and were far more reasonable and tolerant than 
were the Pharisees. The Sadducees reasoned with Jesus. 
The Pharisees never deigned to do this. They met all his 
arguments with persecutions alone. 

As to Jesus, if there really was ever any such person, he 
was doubtless a man of the most excellent intentions. His 
teachings, however, seem to have been a strange commix- 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 575 

ture of the most sublime truths and the most pernicious 
errors. Many of his teachings were undeniably well cal¬ 
culated to exert a beneficial influence upon the minds and 
the characters of men. None of these teachings, however, 
were original with himself. All of them were borrowed by 
him from various grand moral philosophers who had pre¬ 
ceded him. Many of his other teachings, some of which 
seem to have been original with himself, were simply un¬ 
reasonable and impracticable creations of his own imagina¬ 
tion. The balance were undeniably calculated to exert a 
very pernicious influence upon the minds and the char¬ 
acters of those who received them. 

Among these pernicious teachings, may be reckoned all 
of those by which he fully indorsed the purely pagan ideas, 
which we have been considering, and which are now so 
fully exploded, that what we call the sky was an immense 
blue bowl inverted over the earth, and sustaining vast 
bodies of water, all the heavenly bodies, and innumerable 
hosts of gods, angels, saints, etc. By thus indorsing these 
erroneous ideas, which have done more than any others 
to retard the advancement of scientific knowledge, and 
which have led to innumerable and extremely bloody per¬ 
secutions, he clearly proved that he was nothing more than 
a mere man, and that he was utterly unable to rise above 
the ignorance and the superstition that prevailed among 
the people of his nation and of his time. 

Besides these erroneous ideas or doctrines, he seems 
to have adopted, and, through his disciples, to have trans¬ 
mitted to the Christian Church, nearly all the other erro¬ 
neous ideas—nearly all the absurd, degrading, and per¬ 
nicious superstitions that prevailed among any of the 
idolatrous nations with whom the Jews had, in any way, 
come in contact. Among other superstitions, he seems to 
have adopted, and to have transmitted to the church, a be¬ 
lief in witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, etc. He seems 
also to have adopted, and to have transmitted to the 
church, a belief that the whole atmosphere was literally 


576 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


swarming with invisible devils varying in size from that of 
a mite to that of a mountain—a belief that some of these 
devils were so large that they could, and, occasionally, did, 
with the utmost ease, pick up men and fly away with them, 
while others were so extremely small that many thousands 
of them could, and often did, live inside of the body of a 
single man, or of a single hog, and that, too, without per¬ 
ceptibly affecting his size, his shape, or his weight; a be¬ 
lief that all the diseases, and all the evil passions that pre¬ 
vailed among men, were produced by these devils, and that 
it was only by casting the devils out that these diseases 
and evil passions could be overcome. In short, he seems, 
in all things, to have rejected a belief in the natural, and 
to have adopted and transmitted to the church a belief in 
the supernatural alone. 

Practically ignoring all the better doctrines taught by 
Jesus, his followers seem to have planted themselves 
firmly upon those which were calculated to produce the 
greatest amount of evil. And what was the result ? The 
Dark Ages were ushered in. The light of learning was 
extinguished. Civil and religious liberty perished in 
darkness and in blood. Virtue became a mere mockery. 
Ignorance, superstition, hypocrisy, and debauchery pre¬ 
vailed. The Christian Religion was triumphant. The 
Church ruled supreme. A millennium—a carnival of a 
thousand years—was inaugurated of priestly domination, of 
terror, of crime, of wretchedness, and of bloodshed. Hun¬ 
dreds of thousands of men, women, and children, charged 
with witchcraft, were put to death by tortures too terrible 
to be mentioned; and all who dared to express any sym¬ 
pathy for these hapless victims, or any doubt in regard 
to their guilt, were treated in the same way. So it was 
also with the few scientists who dared to teach any 
truth not in harmony with the church doctrines that the 
earth was a flat and stationary body, the sky a solid struc¬ 
ture or firmament, etc. These scientists being justly re¬ 
garded as the most formidable of all foes to these, and to 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 577 

3,11 the rest of that monstrous system of errors called the 
Christian Religion, were persistently hunted down, by the 
priests, like so many wild beasts. They were starved or 
strangled in loathsome dungeons. They were torn to 
pieces and devoured by ravenous beasts. They were 
stung to death in dark dens filled with venomous slimy 
serpents. Their bones were broken upon the wheel. 
Their joints were pulled asunder upon the rack. Their 
tongues were torn from their throats. Their flesh was 
mangled with red-hot hooks of iron. Their eyes were 
torn from their heads and the cavities filled with melted 
lead. They were boiled in oil, consumed at the stake, or 
roasted in dry pans. They were tied down upon their 
backs, their bodies ripped open, and then swine made to 
tear out and devour their nntrails before their own eyes. 
They were bound with their faces to the sun, their eyelids 
were cut off, tlieir naked eyeballs were smeared with honey 
to attract flies, and there they remained until thousands of 
the most loathsome'worms consumed their eyes and slowly 
ate their way into their brains. In short, during all the 
ages of church supremacy, the days were full of gloom, of 
fear, of priestly ceremonies, of agony, and of blood. The 
nights were hideous with the awful cries of expiring vic¬ 
tims, and with the terrible yells of the legions of faithful 
followers of Jesus as they danced like demented demons 
around the lurid flames in which, for the glory of God and 
the building up of liis church, they were consuming the 
quivering flesh of some poor witch, heretic, scientist, or 
infidel. And all of these things, and thousands more of 
a similar nature, followed as the legitimate results of the 
monstrously erroneous teachings of Jesus himself and of 
his apostles. 

And these faithful followers of Jesus—these relentless 
persecutors—these legions of yelling, demoniacal torment¬ 
ors were not, by nature, any more cruel, or any more 
wicked, than were other men of their own time. Neither 
were they abusing the Christian Religion. On the con- 


578 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


trary, they were faithfully defending it. They were scru¬ 
pulously carrying out in their lives its very letter and its 
true spirit. They w ere truly God-fearing and God-loving 
men. They had been reared up; as it were, beneath the 
very droppings of the Lord’s sanctuary. From their 
earliest childhood, they had been taught by pious mothers, 
and by priests w r ho claimed to be God’s ministers, to re¬ 
gard their religion as of more importance than all other 
concerns put together. And they did so regard it. They 
were a thousand times more strict in the observance of all 
its ordinances—in the discharge of all the duties that it 
enjoined upon them—and a thousand times more zealous in 
its defense, than are the so-called Christians of the pres¬ 
ent time. They would have cheerfully suffered martyrdom 
for their religion, and that is something that very few 
Christians w r ould now do. In destroying heretics, infidels, 
witches, scientists, etc., by the most terrible of all con¬ 
ceivable tortures, they were simply performing what they 
sincerely believed to be a solemn religious duty; a duty 
the performance of which would secure to them God’s 
most precious blessings, and the neglect of which w T ould 
bring upon them his most fearful displeasure. They w 7 ere 
faithfully carrying out, in letter and in spirit, the doctrines 
of the Bible—the precepts of the religion that they loved. 
The evil lay not in the people themselves, but in the very 
nature of their religion. Previous to becoming Christians, 
they were no worse than were the other people of their ow n 
time. As its legitimate result, Christianity made them 
worse than they were w T hile under the influence of pagan¬ 
ism. Were the Christians of the present time to live as 
fully up to all the requirements of their religion as those 
people did, they would be no better than those people 
w r ere. If the Christians of the present time really are, 
as they claim to be, any better than were the Christians of 
the Dark Ages, it is simply from the fact that the Christians 
of the present time have, in a thousand things, receded 
from the Bible and from primitive Christianity. It is only 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OP THE BIBLE. 579 

as they thus recede from these fountains of evil, that 
Christians ever can, or ever do, become any better. So 
long as they cling closely to the Bible and to their religion 
they are bound to be unreasoning fanatics, intolerant 
bigots, and unfeeling tormentors. They are bound to be¬ 
lieve in witches, and to kill them. They are bound also 
to destroy heretics, infidels, scientists, and all other ene¬ 
mies to their religion. In short, they are bound to be just 
what the Christians were during those dark ages in which 
Christianity was triumphant. 

And how stands the case now ? Has the Church ever 
admitted that any of the doctrines in question are errone¬ 
ous? Has she ever abandoned any of them? We all 
know that she has never done either of these things. We 
all know that all these doctrines are clearly taught in the 
Bible, and that the Church has never condemned the 
Bible or any portion of it. We all know that she still 
holds the Bible to be, in its entirety, the inspired Word of 
God, to be in every particle absolutely true, and to be, in 
its letter and its spirit, to the fullest extent, binding upon 
the consciences of men. We all know that she has never 
admitted that she did wrong in killing witches, heretics, 
infidels, scientists, etc. We all know that, so long as she 
retained the power to do so, she clung to the killing of 
these classes of offenders as a most precious heaven- 
accorded privilege. We all know that she still claims a 
right to the exercise of this blessed privilege, and that she 
would certainly still exercise this right, if her power to do 
so still remained. We all know that, without condemning 
the Bible, and the God of the Bible, she cannot condemn 
the doctrines of witchcraft, of sorcery, of necromancy, 
etc. We all know that it is only under absolute compul¬ 
sion that she suffers those to live who reject these God- 
given doctrines. We all know that she still clings to the 
equally pernicious, and equally exploded, doctrines of a 
local heaven, resting above a flat and stationary earth, and! 
of a local hell resting under that earth. We all know that 


580 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


she must retain these doctrines or perish. We are not 
surprised, therefore, to see her still desperately battling 
away against every truth of science that tends, in any way, 
to throw light upon these monstrous priestly impositions. 
We are not surprised to see her, shorn as she now is of 
the power to burn them in this life, impotently dooming 
to eternal burnings, in the life to come, every scientist who 
demonstrates that the heaven and the hell upon which her 
existence depends are simply absurd priestly inventions, 
borrowed from pagan mythology. 

No longer intimidated, however, by the empty fulmina- 
tions of the now almost powerless church, scientists have 
thoroughly dissipated into empty space the firmament or 
heaven of the Bible—the only heaven ever taught in any 
of the world’s many systems of religion. All intelligent 
ministers of the gospel now very well know that the 
heaven of the Bible—the heaven which, for money and 
power, they still hypocritically teach—was essentially 
founded upon the ideas of a flat and stationary earth, a 
solid sky or firmament, etc. They now all very well know, 
too, that, in teaching as a reality a heaven essentially 
founded upon these demonstrably erroneous ideas, they 
are simply playing the ignoble role of unscrupulous re¬ 
ligious impostors. They now all very well know that, in 
teaching this heaven, they are founding hopes which can 
never be realized. One of them once admitted to me that 
he was thus knowingly imposing upon the credulity of 
the people. He contended, however, that he, and all other 
similar impostors, were entirely justifiable in thus de¬ 
ceiving the people; that the people wanted to be thus de¬ 
ceived ; that they would more cheerfully pay for being de¬ 
ceived than for anything else ; that by this deception, this 
groundless hope of heaven, they were rendered happy, 
if not better, while they lived; that, when they died, 
they would know nothing about it; and that, conse¬ 
quently, the deception, upon the whole, increasing as it 
did the sum total of human happiness, was undeniably a 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 581 

good thing. Letting this argument pass for what it is 
worth, the priests all very well know that, without utterly 
ruining their own trade, they cannot abandon the practice 
of this monstrous imposition. And can we reasonably 
hope that they will ever ruin their own trade ? 

Were the truth in regard to these things generally 
known, the Christian Religion would at once appear in its 
real character, that of a monstrous imposition. The 
church would at once become a thing of the past, and the 
trade of the priests would be gone. The people would 
at once recognize science as the source of all truth, and 
nature herself as the source of all good. Sectarian perse¬ 
cutions and dissensions would at once and forever cease 
upon earth. Men would no longer squander their money 
upon armies of worse than useless priests, or in the erect¬ 
ing and the furnishing of those gorgeous temples of 
pride and fashion, called churches. The people would 
soon all learn to think and to act for themselves. A 
higher state of intelligence would be inaugurated, and 
peace, prosperity, and happiness would prevail. It is 
only through their own ignorance, only through their 
habit of having others do their thinking and their acting 
for them, that the masses of the people are still capable of 
being made the willing victims, of those mighty armies of 
impostors who live by priestcraft alone. 

I am aware that the charges which I am now making 
against the priesthood in general are very grave ones, and 
I expect that, in making them, I shall array against myself 
the unrelenting persecutions of the whole priestly frater¬ 
nity, So well persuaded am I, however, of the justness of 
these charges, that I now explicitly repeat, without the 
least fear of successful contradiction, that every man who 
preaches, as a reality, the heaven of the Bible, or any 
other heaven consistent with the Christian Religion, is 
either to be pitied for his want of common sense, or to be 
abhorred for his want of common honesty. In the one 
case, he is incapable of distinguishing between truth 


582 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


and error or between reason and absurdity. In this case, 
his want of intelligence renders him utterly unfit to be a 
teacher of the people. In the other case, although he is 
well qualified to be a successful minister of the gospel, he 
is too dishonest to be trusted in any capacity whatever. 
In either case, therefore, his teachings are utterly worth¬ 
less, if not absolutely pernicious. In the present light of 
science, no one but a mental imbecile can really believe in 
the literal existence of any such heaven, or of any such 
hell, as is taught in the Bible; and no one but a con¬ 
summate hypocrite and scoundrel will preach such a 
heaven, or such a hell, while he himself does not believe in 
- its literal existence. Let every priest, therefore, determine 
for himself whether he be a mental imbecile or a hypocrite 
and a scoundrel. He cannot preach the doctrines in ques¬ 
tion and still be both intelligent and honest. The former 
of these two classes of preachers, the mental imbeciles, 
who themselves actually do believe the absurd doctrines 
in question, are usually to be found in country villages, 
preaching for small salaries to small and ignorant congre¬ 
gations. The latter class, the intelligent hypocrites and 
scoundrels, who do not themselves believe a word of the 
absurd doctrines in question, are usually to be found in 
large towns and cities, preaching for princely salaries to 
large, intelligent, and fashionable congregations. The 
preachers of this latter class usually get more real enjoy¬ 
ment out of life than do any other class of persons ; and 
beyond this enjoyment, for what do they care ? 

Leaving these men, however, to reconcile their false 
teachings to the people, the best way they can, with their 
own consciences, let us go on a tour of exploration, 
through the universe, and see if we can discover any 
trace of the Christian’s evanished heaven. We need 
not look for it any more where the Bible locates it, upon 
the upper surface of a solid sky or firmament, over-arching 
and resting with its brim or foundation upon a flat and 
stationary earth. We have already often looked for it 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 583 

there in vain. When, with godlike power, Science rolled 
np the Bible’s little flat and stationary earth into an im¬ 
mense globe, and sent it whirling, with inconceivable 
velocity, through the measureless regions of uncreated 
space ; when she utterly dissipated the Bible’s firmament 
or solid blue sky that rested like a vast inverted bowl over 
the earth, the heaven of the Bible, the only heaven ever 
invented by men, evanished, at once and forever, from 
among the things that were. Where, then, is it now ? 

If, indeed, there really be any such place as heaven, 
then, of necessity, it must possess a definite size and 
shape, it must be composed of a definite quantity of matter, 
and must occupy a definite portion of space. If it be 
not where we now are, on the earth’s surface, then, of 
necessity, it must be either inside of the body of the 
earth, or somewhere above the earth’s surface, in the 
realms of illimitable space. That it exists .either inside 
of the earth, or on her surface, no orthodox sect of Chris¬ 
tians pretend to teach. We need not, therefore, look for 
it in either of these directions. Since all orthodox Chris¬ 
tians agree in locating it, where its very name requires it 
to be, above the earth’s surface, we need not look for it in 
any other direction. But what does up or above the earth's 
surface mean? Simply outward from the earth , indefinitely, 
in all directions . And does heaven lie thus, indefinitely, 
outward from the earth in all directions ? If it does, 
then, of necessity, it must be a transparent hollow sphere 
of unknown but definite thickness, surrounding the earth 
as a center, and accompanying her in all her revolutions. 
On this hypothesis, we are already in the very center of 
heaven, and God, with all his mighty menageries of per¬ 
forming beasts, with all his countless hosts of saints and 
of angels, is riding with us around the sun. We need not, 
therefore, trouble ourselves any more about going to 
heaven. In this case, however, who takes care of all the 
other worlds, and what becomes of their inhabitants ? Is 
each one of them, in like manner, accompanied by a simi- 


584 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


lar heaven with a similar God, a similar menagerie, etc.,, 
of its own, inside of it ? 

If the lost heaven of our search does not thus surround 
the earth, on all sides, and partake of all her motions, 
where can it be, and what can it be? Of necessity, it must 
be either inside or outside of the solar system. We will 
first look for it inside of this system. In its composition, 
it must, of necessity, as I have already stated, contain 
matter in some form. To make it destitute of all matter, 
would evidently be to reduce it to empty space—to a per¬ 
fect vacuum—to nothing at all. Indeed, the Bible has it 
composed of matter—of gold, precious stones, etc. Of 
equal necessity, too, the matter that enters into its compo¬ 
sition must be, like all other matter, possessed of certain 
essential properties, among which are gravity, magnetism, 
etc. Possessing these properties, then, in its composition, 
heaven must, of necessity, attract or repel every other ma¬ 
terial body, and be, at the same time, itself attracted or 
repelled by every other such body. In this case, it would, 
sooner or later, fall to, and unite with, the sun, or some 
other material body, unless it were prevented from so 
doing by possessing, like all other known worlds, what is 
called orbitular or planetary motion. In other words, it 
must, of necessity, be itself a planet. And this it must be, 
no matter to what system it may belong. Our search, 
therefore, reduces to the task of finding some planet which 
has been specially fitted up for the abode of God, of saints, 
of angels, etc. 

When, however, we come to examine the various planets 
that lie within our field of vision, we find that they are all 
similar to the earth in their composition and their char¬ 
acter. We find that they are all subject to the vicissitudes 
of day and night, summer and winter, etc., and that, as 
places of abode, they are not so well adapted to the chil¬ 
dren of the earth as is the earth herself. Where, then, is 
the Christian’s evanished heaven, what is’ it, how can it be' 
reached, and what proof have we that there is any such 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 585 

place at all ? Our preachers profess to be able to guide 
us unerringly to this heaven. If, then, they be not all a 
set of consummate impostors, they certainly can, and just 
as certainly will, inform us exactly where it now is, what 
it now is, and how it can now be reached. They certainly 
can, and just as certainly will, remove from our minds 
every vestige of doubt in regard to these things. Let them 
do this, and I will at once recant all my infidel teachings, 
and become a zealous championof the Christian Religion. 
If they cannot do this, then they undeniably stand before 
us a set of convicted impostors, and we should treat them 
as such. To give them any aid or encouragement in the 
practice of their monstrous imposition, is simply to become 
particeps criminis in all their evil doings. So much for 
heaven. 

In regard to hell, I shall not say very much. The word 
is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and formerly signified nothing 
more than death, or the grave in which the dead were con¬ 
cealed or covered up. As heaven involved the idea of 
elevation—of something heaved up and thus made promi¬ 
nent to the view—so hell, on the contrary, involved the 
opposite idea of depression—of something like a pit, into 
which objects, when cast, became covered up and concealed 
from the view. The Hebrew word corresponding to hell is 
sheol; the Greek word, hades. With the meaning now 
assigned to it by the Christian Church, that of a place 
filled with fire and brimstone, in which the spirits of un¬ 
godly men are eternally tormented, the word hell is not 
found at all in the Old Testament. To the credit of the 
Jews, they never needed, and never used, any such institu¬ 
tion as the Christian’s hell. 

In the New Testament, the word hell is often used, but 
improperly so, as the translation of the Greek word Ge¬ 
henna, or the Hebrew Gehinnom, which, according to 
Webster, was the name of a “ valley, near Jerusalem, where 
some of the Israelites sacrificed their children to Molech, 
and which, on this account, was afterwards regarded as a 


586 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


place of abomination, and made a receptacle for all the refuse 
of the city, perpetual fires being kept up in order to prevent 
pestilential effluvia.” The bodies of executed criminals, 
denied the right of burial, were also often thrown into this 
valley and there consumed, or partially so, by the fires 
that were kept constantly burning. “ In the New Testa¬ 
ment,” therefore, as Webster continues, “ the name (Ge¬ 
henna) is transferred by an easy metaphor to hell.” This 
valley, therefore, and not hades or the grave, is really the 
hell of the Christian Church; or, rather, from this valley 
was derived the idea which led priests to the invention of 
the hell which they now preach. 

“ For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn 
unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her 
increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains ” 
(Deut. xxxii, 22). This, I believe, is the first passage of 
the Bible in which the word hell is used. Whatever may 
have been the nature of the fire in question, it is certain 
that the hell here mentioned, although declared to be the 
“ lowest hell,” was something of a material nature—some¬ 
thing connected with the surface of the earth, “ with her 
increase,” her “mountains,” etc.—something connected 
with the temporal interests of the people. It certainly 
was not, in any way, connected, with a future state of ex¬ 
istence. This fact is rendered still more clear by the next 
three verses, in which God threatens to punish his dis¬ 
obedient and rascally favorites with hunger, with heat, 
with the teeth of beasts, with the poison of serpents, with 
the sword, and with other similar evils, all of which unde¬ 
niably pertained to earth and to the present life. And all 
of these evils were to be connected with, and to follow 
after, the evils which were to be the direct results of the 
setting of hell and the mountains on fire. Of necessity, 
then, hell, which was burned by the same fire that burned 
“ the foundations of the mountains,” must have been, like 
all the other things with which it was connected, of a 
purely temporal nature. 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 587 

“ The sorrow?, of hell compassed me about; the snares 
of death prevented me ” (2 Sam. xxii, 6). In order to be 
thus “ compassed . . . about ” by “ the sorrows of hell,” 
David, the reputed author of this language, must, of ne¬ 
cessity, have been himself in the midst of the hell to 
which these sorrows pertained. But what was the nature 
of that hell? Was it, as our priests would fain have us 
believe that it was, an eternal world, filled with fire and 
brimstone, and resounding \Yith the never-ceasing cries, of 
unutterable anguish, of devils and the spirits of the 
damned? Certainly not. Previous to his death, David 
was never in any such hell as this, and was never encom¬ 
passed by the sorrows of any such hell. He was simply 
encompassed by the sorrows of the hell of persecution ; the 
hell in which Christians have always delighted to torment 
infidels, heritics, scientists, and even one another. The 
first verse of this same chapter says : “ And David spake 

unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the 
Lord had delivered him out of the hand of all his ene¬ 
mies, and out of the hand of Saul.” From this, and from 
other portions of the same chapter, we learn that David’s 
“sorrows of hell” were nothing more than the peisecu- 
tions of his enemies. From some of these same pas¬ 
sages, we also learn that, in return for these “ sorrows of 
hell ” with which they compassed him about, he gave those 
enemies hell itself—death and the grave. 

“For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ” (Ps. xvi, 10). 
From this, we learn that the soul of the author, the godly 
David, was to be, for a time, confined in hell, from which, 
however, God was expected finally to release it. By turn¬ 
ing to Ps. xlix, 15, we learn exactly what this hell was. 
“ But God will redeem my soul from the power of the 
grave; for he shall receive me.” Here the same hope or 
sentiment is expressed in language that cannot be misun¬ 
derstood. Unlike most of the other Jews of his time, 
David, who had been compelled to spend some years 
among the pagans of the neighboring nations, seems to 


588 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


have derived from those pagans a belief in the doctrine of a 
future state of existence. Like many other believers in this 
doctrine, however, both of ancient and modern times, he be¬ 
lieved that the soul would sleep with the body in sheol or 
the grave, until the coming of a day of resurrection. He be¬ 
lieved that his own soul would go down thus with his 
body into the grave, but he expected it to be, in some 
future day, redeemed or resurrected thence and taken by 
God unto himself. Hence the language above quoted. 

In the latter of the two passages under consideration, 
the word sheol or hades is correctly translated “ the 
grave.” This passage, therefore, makes good sense, and 
is easily understood. This is especially the case when we 
consider the author’s belief in the doctrine of the final 
resurrection of souls long dormant in the grave. In the 
former passage, the same word sheol or hades is incor¬ 
rectly translated “hell.” This passage, therefore, makes 
the worst kind of nonsense, and has caused a vast amount 
of wrangling, and not a little throat-cutting, among the 
ohampions of the Bible. The sense, however, is made all 
right by simply translating it correctly—“ For thou wilt 
not leave my soul in the grave.” So of scores of other 
similar mistranslations of this same word. In every in¬ 
stance, the mistranslation reduces to nonsense the passage 
in which it occurs. 

Had these mistranslations been the unintentional work 
of men too ignorant to make correct translations, that fact 
would have been sufficient to destroy all confidence in the 
Bible after it had passed through the hands of such men. 
We find the case, however, to have been much worse than 
this. As I have already elsewhere stated, we find that 
these mistranslations were the result, not of gross igno¬ 
rance, but of deliberate design. We find that, when, for 
their own benefit, the Christian priesthood had invented 
and put into operation the horrible but lucrative hell to 
which they still so tenaciously cling, or rather, when they 
had stolen this soul-dwarfing but money-making institu- 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 589 

tion from their pagan neighbors, they thought to make it 
more popular among the people, and, consequently, more 
profitable to themselves, by making it appear to have been 
in use among the Jews of ancient times. We find further 
that they, therefore, went back through all the Old Testa¬ 
ment scriptures, and inserted the word hell into as many 
of them as possible. We find, however, that they could 
not thus insert into these scriptures the present popular 
meaning of the word hell; and that, consequently, the in¬ 
evitable result of this v r hole extremely dishonest proceed¬ 
ing was simply to reduce to nonsense many of the plainest 
passages of the whole Bible. We find, for instance, that, 
in their wonderful eagerness to put a plenty of hell into 
the Old Testament, they even went so far as to make a 
hell, or, at least, a hell-of-a-fish, of the monster that is said 
to have performed the act of deglutition upon the person of 
the rebellious old prophet, Jonah. After passing through 
the mutilating hands of men so utterly wanting in all that 
constitutes common honesty, of what possible value to us 
can the Bible be ? 

“ Let death seize upon them, and let them go down 
quick into hell” (Ps. lv, 15). In this passage, the word 
sheol or hades should certainly have been translated, “ the 
grave.” Indeed, it is so translated in the margin of the 
accepted version, even some Christians having come to 
doubt the policy of making David, their model of the 
Bible, thus incontinently pray for the “ quick ” descent 
of all his personal enemies into the unspeakable torments 
of eternal flames. 

You will notice that, in this passage, and, in every other 
passage of the Old Testament in which they are both used, 
the words death and hell are employed as the names of 
things of a kindred nature—of things naturally associated 
w T ith each other, hell following directly as the legitimate 
result of death. This is just as it should be. In these 
passages, hell, being merely a mistranslation for the grave, 
is naturally associated with death, which renders the grave 


590 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


necessary. In regard to life and hell, on the contrary, the 
very reverse of this is true. In every instance in which 
they are both mentioned, they are contrasted with 
each other as things of entirely opposite or dissimilar 
natures—as things essentially disassociated from each 
other. See Prov. xv, 24 : “ The way of life is above to the 

wise, that he may depart from hell beneath This, again, 
is just as it should be. Hell, meaning death or the grave, 
is, by its very nature, essentially disassociated from its 
opposite, life. 

“ And they shall not lie with the mighty that are fallen 
of the uncircumcised, which are gone down to hell with their 
weapons of war; and they have laid their swords under 
their heads, but their iniquities shall be upon their bones, 
though they were the terror of the mighty in the land of 
the living ” (Ezek. xxxii, 27). Here we have, in hell, not 
the souls of the dead screaming in unutterable torments, 
but their bodies resting peacefully with their swords under 
their heads, and their other weapons of war by their sides. 
This was all natural enough. The hell in question was 
simply the grave in which, according to the custom of 
many nations, the fallen warriors were laid* to rest with 
their weapons of warfare by their sides or under their heads. 
Our priests, however, would fain have us believe that the 
parties here mentioned were disembodied souls that had 
lugged their weapons of war and their own bones down to 
the Christian’s horrible hell, wherever that may be, and 
had there, of their own accord, lain themselves quietly 
down to rest, in puddles of melted brimstone, with these 
weapons by their sides or under their heads. These priests 
seem to forget that the heat of such a hell as they preach 
would soon char to dust the bones of the warriors in ques¬ 
tion, and either burn up or melt their weapons of war. In 
their mad efforts to sustain this their monstrous hell-fired 
imposition, how supremely ridiculous do these unscrupu¬ 
lous priests render many passages of scripture which, when 
properly rendered, are reasonable and even beautiful! 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 591 

To me, there seems to be something exceedingly beau¬ 
tiful in the idea, erroneous though it doubtless is, upon 
which is founded the custom, still prevalent in many coun¬ 
tries, of thus laying the fallen hero to his last repose with 
his weapons of war, and all the other articles that he most 
highly prized in this life, either by his side or under his 
head. On the part of those who practice it, this custom 
indicates a kind regard, extending beyond the mystic river 
of death, for the welfare and the happiness of their kindred 
and their friends. It also indicates on their part an abiding 
faith in the reality of a conscious existence beyond the 
grave. The pale and silent sleeper is expected to awake, 
some day in the indefinite future to resume an active and 
joyous existence, and to again use the various articles 
that are thus so kindly interred with his lifeless remains. 
Yes, there is something very beautiful in this custom— 
something that tends to soften and to humanize even the 
savages by whom it is practiced. 

In their intense desire, however, to have the greater 
portion of mankind eternally damned, our priests have 
changed this beautiful, this humanizing custom, into the 
horrible, the demonizing custom, now almost universal 
throughout all Christendom, of burning by far the greater 
portion of all our friends, our relatives, and our neighbors, 
for ever and ever, with yelling fiends and screaming devils, 
in the fearful flames of fire and brimstone. Yes, our 
priests have even blasphemously represented God himself 
as the most atrocious of all monsters—as a monster who, 
without consulting their own wishes in regard to this 
matter, continues to bring men into existence, and then, 
for some trivial offense, of which, when making them, he 
himself predetermined that they should inevitably be 
guilty, to doom nine-tenths or more of them, men, women, 
and children—yea, infants not a span long—to writhe and 
shriek, with flaming eyes and burning breath, in the un¬ 
utterable torments of fire and brimstone, during all the 
absolutely endless ages of eternity. What could be more 


592 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


utterly destructive to all that is grand, noble, and beautiful 
in humanity, than is the harboring in one’s bosom of a 
belief in this awful doctrine of the Christian’s hell—this 
doctrine so unutterable in its injustice and cruelty to men, 
and so fearfully shocking in the monstrosity of its blas¬ 
phemy against God ? 

The Jews had not sufficient faith in the reality of an 
existence beyond the grave to practice the beautiful cus¬ 
tom to which I have called your attention. Those men¬ 
tioned by Ezekiel as practicing this custom were Egyptians 
and other gentiles. Instead of making such graves them¬ 
selves, the Jews, whenever they had opportunity, were 
wont, in revenge, to desecrate those made by their gentile 
neighbors. In the passage which I have quoted, you will 
notice that a threat is made against the “ bones” of those 
thus laid to rest because of the “ iniquities of those per¬ 
sons while they were the terror of the mighty in the land 
of the living.” This same want of faith in the immortality 
of the soul, on the part of the Jews, left them, as I have 
already said, no possible use for any such institution as 
the Christian’s hell. 

“■Though they dig into hell, thence shall mine hand 
take them ” (Amos ix, 2). From this, we learn that hell 
was somewhere under the ground, and that it could 
be reached by digging. Indeed, I believe that the 
advocates of this institution have always agreed in 
teaching that its location was somewhere down, or below 
the position occupied by ourselves. These teachings, 
therefore, certainly place it below the earth’s surface ; 
somewhere within the body of the earth. In that posi¬ 
tion, it must, of necessity, accompany the earth in all her 
motions,* and cannot, at the very farthest, be more than 
the earth’s semi-diameter distant from where we now are. 
But in what part of the earth is it, and where is its en¬ 
trance ? If, before his death, some enterprising Yankee 
could discover it, would he not turn it to account by either 
selling it, or working it, as a sulphur mine ? And would 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 593 

he not be likely to hire all the devils and damned men in 
hell to labor for him as miners and to take their pay in 
water ? 

“ But I say unto you, That whosoever shall say to his 
brother, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire ” (Matt, 
v, 22). This is the first passage in the New Testament in 
which the word hell is used; and we at once perceive 
that the word is here used with a meaning never assigned 
to it in the Old Testament; a meaning more nearly akin 
to its present popular meaning in the Christian’s gloomy 
mythology. We at once perceive that, instead of being 
used, as it is in the Old Testament, in its literal sense, to 
represent the grave, it is here used in a new, and, conse¬ 
quently, a figurative sense, to denote either the place of 
confinement, or the condition of punishment that is sup¬ 
posed to await the departed spirits of those whom God 
has not seen fit to “ elect ” to salvation. The sense in 
which the word is here used being a figurative sense, the 
word fire, which is used in the same connection, is bound 
to signify figurative and not real fire. That figurative fire 
might have been some form of punishment that awaited 
the offender in another world, or it might have been 
nothing more than the immediate warming up which he 
was in danger of receiving at the hands of the brother 
whom he had offended by calling him a fool. At the pres¬ 
ent time, the meaning that Jesus probably meant to con¬ 
vey would very likely be expressed as follows : “ But I 
say unto you, that whosoever shall say to his brother, 
Thou fool, shall be in danger of ‘catching liell> or of having 
a head put on him by the offended brother.” Admitting, 
however, that the fire of hell be real fire, what then? 
Since, according to all orthodox teachings, the souls of 
men are entirely immaterial, it is evidently utterly impos¬ 
sible for them to be, in even the slightest degree, affected 
by the purely physical action of a material substance like 
real fire. Would not such souls be just as comfortable in 


594 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


such fire as they would be anywhere else? Would not 
hell be a failure ? 

“And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast 
it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy 
members should perish, and not that thy whole body 
should be cast into hell ” (Matt, v, 29). From this, we 
learn that the bodies of men were sometimes cast entire 
into hell. It would also appear that they were occasion¬ 
ally cast therein while yet alive, or that they were at least 
prematurely killed in order that they might be cast there¬ 
in. Otherwise, no man would care, to the value of his 
right eye or his right arm, what became of his body ? But 
how could these things have been, if hell was then what the 
Christian Church teaches that it now is ? We all know 
that live men were never taken from among their friends, 
and cast thus bodily into any such hell. We all know, 
too, that even the bodies of dead men were never cast into 
any such hell; that the bodies of dead men always remain 
and decay here upon earth. Besides this, even if the 
bodies of men were cast into such a hell, how long could 
they, whether dead or alive, survive the action of its terri¬ 
ble fires ? As a place of continued punishment, would not 
such a hell be a total failure ? 

From all these things, it is evident that, although Jesus 
certainly did have reference to some place, or to some 
condition of punishment, he had no reference to any such 
place as the Christian’s eternal hell, or to any such condi¬ 
tion of punishment as is said to exist therein. It is 
evident that he had reference to some place, or to some 
condition, into which, as a punishment, the bodies of men 
were actually cast. But what could that place or that con¬ 
dition have been? Evidently nothing more nor less than 
Gehenna itself, the valley of Hinnom, near which he then 
was, and into which, as I have already said, the bodies of 
executed malefactors were frequently thrown. To the 
people of Judea, this valley, with all its horrible associa¬ 
tions, appeared a thousand times more terrible than the 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 


595 


gallows appears to the people of America, or the guillotine 
to those of Prance. To restrain them from wicked ways, 
parents were wont to hold up to the imaginations of their 
children the terrors of this hideous valley. Teachers 
were wont to do the same with their pupils. And Jesus 
was simply following this common custom. He was 
simply teaching his hearers that, if they indulged in any 
form of sin, they were liable finally to commit some capital 
offense, io be executed, and to be thrown bodily into 
Gehenna or hell; that in order to be entirely secure 
against this fearful fate, they should promptly cast from 
them everything, however dear it might be to them, even 
a bodily member, an eye, an arm, or a sexual organ, if that 
thing, that bodily member tended to lead them into sim 
Jesus had probably himself already acted upon this prin¬ 
ciple, and made himself a eunuch. Be this as it may, it is 
certain that many of the early Christians, and not a 
few of those of modern times, acting upon his recommen¬ 
dation, did make eunuchs of themselves, and did, in 
this way, greatly diminish their inclination to sin, and the? 
danger of their ever being cast as executed malefactors 
into Gehenna or hell, or of their ever meeting any other 
evil fate of which Gehenna was a type. 

“And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted unto heaven; 
shall be brought down to hell: for if the mighty works 
which have been done in thee had been done in Sodom, it; 
would have remained until this day” (Matt, xi, 23). Jesus 
here evidently refers to the cities themselves of Sodom and 
Capernaum—to the houses, the temples, the towers,, etc.,, 
that constituted them cities, and not to the people who in¬ 
habited those cities. The people were not cities. People 
are never built. Cities always are. Besides this, the peo¬ 
ple of Capernaum were never “ exalted unto heaven,” and,, 
under no circumstances, could the people of Sodom “ have- 
remained until this day.” It was the houses, then, the; 
temples, the towers, etc,, of Capernaum which were “ex¬ 
alted unto heaven ” and which were to “ be brought down 


596 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


to hell,” or else it was simply the prosperity of the city 
which was figuratively said to be thus exalted, and which 
was to be figuratively thus brought down. But what was 
the hell down to which the material or the prosperity of 
this city was to be brought ? Evidently nothing more nor 
less than that condition of lowness of material or of pros¬ 
perity, that condition of ruin and desolation, to which any 
city may be reduced, and to which Capernaum actually 
was afterwards reduced. And will the champions of the 
Bible contend that the material of that city, the houses, 
the temples, the towers, etc., were ever brought’ down to 
an eternal world called hell, filled with fire and brimstone, 
or that the prosperity of that city was ever brought down 
to any such hell ? If they do contend for either of these 
things, will they please inform us how far those various 
structures had to be carried in order to be literally 
“ brought down to hell,” who accomplished this wonderful 
work, how he accomplished it, how these various struc¬ 
tures are preserved from destruction by the fierce fires of 
hell, of what use they can possibly be, where they now 
are, in a country whose climate is so torrid that its inhab¬ 
itants require no shelter, etc., or how its condition of pros¬ 
perity was separated from the city itself and “ brought 
down to hell,” and how the literal fires of hell were en¬ 
abled to so act upon that abstract condition—that mere 
idea—as to constitute to it a real punishment? Will they 
also explain why that city was never missed when it went 
to hell ? Besides all these things, are not these champions 
bound to admit that, in construing this matter as they do, 
they make God act like a silly child in thus venting his 
unreasonable wrath upon inanimate objects; in thus in¬ 
continently damning houses, towers, temples, etc., or con¬ 
ditions—purely abstract ideas—to the fierce flames of an 
eternal hell? From all these things, it is evident that the 
“ hell ” to which Capernaum was to “ be brought down ” 
was no more an eternal world, filled with fire and brim¬ 
stone, and inhabited by devils and other damned spirits, 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 597 

than the “ heaven ” to which, at that time, it was “ ex¬ 
alted,” was an eternal world, filled with all things glori¬ 
ous, and inhabited by saints, by angels, and by God him¬ 
self. As the “ heaven,” unto which that city was “ exalt¬ 
ed,” was evidently nothing more nor less than simply the 
height literally attained by its lofty structures, or the 
height figuratively attained by its wonderful prosperity, 
so the “hell,” down to which it was to “be brought,” was 
evidently nothing more nor less than the reverse of these 
conditions; nothing more nor less than the lowness to 
which it would literally “be brought down,” when all of 
its lofty structures should be leveled with the ground, or 
the lowness, to which it would be figuratively “ brought 
down,” when all of its great prosperity should have de¬ 
parted. As heaven was merely literal or figurative height, 
so hell was merely literal or figurative lowness of con¬ 
dition. 

“ And it came to pass that the beggar died, and was 
carried by angels into Abraham’s bosom. The rich man 
also died and was burried. And in hell he lifted up his 
eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and 
Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried, and said, Father 
Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he 
may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue : 
for I am tormented in this flame. But Abraham said, 
Son,” etc. (Luke xvi, 22-25). Here we do, indeed, seem at 
last to have found the literal hell of fire and brimstone 
which has always been the pride and the delight of the 
Christian Church. Here we do, indeed, seem at last to 
have found the literal home of the Christian priest’s great 
confederate, Old Splitfoot himself—the literal home of the 
eternally damned. The ablest Bible critics, however, all 
agree that the whole scene here described is purely alle¬ 
gorical, never having been really enacted at all. What, 
then, becomes of the real hell which we seemed to have 
found ? 


598 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


The changing of this purely metaphorical hell into a 
real institution was the work of the Christian priesthood 
of a later and a more corrupt period. The change was 
made for the special benefit of the priests, and well has it 
served the purpose for which it was intended. Indeed, 
without this improved hell, with which to scare the peo¬ 
ple and make them pay for priestly services, half our 
priests would have to steal or starve. But, accepting the 
scene just described as a reality, how far could heaven 
and hell have been apart, and yet the inhabitants of the 
one be thus able to see and to converse with the inhabi¬ 
tants of the other? At the very furthest, they could 
not have been more than a few thousand feet apart. Since 
heaven, then, is on one side of us and hell on the other, 
we must, of necessity, be within easy speaking distance of 
both places. 

“He seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of 
Christ, that his soul was not left in hell ” (Acts ii, 31). 
Here the unknown author of Acts describes some one 
[David] as prophetically going forward, through a vast 
vdsta of years, to a point in time posterior to the resurrec¬ 
tion of Jesus ; and as then declaring of Jesus, as of one 
who had already lived and died, “ that his soul was not 
left in hell” This language clearly implies that, although 
it was finally redeemed or resurrected therefrom, the soul 
of Jesus was, nevertheless, permitted to go to hell, and, 
ior a time, to remain confined therein. But what was the 
nature of the hell to which the soul of this distinguished 
personage was thus permitted to go, and in which it was 
thus permitted, for a time, to remain ? Dare the champions 
of the Bible claim that this was the Christian’s eternal hell 
of fire and brimstone ? Dare they claim that, for a time, 
Jesus was actually damned—that, for a time, he was 
doomed to be the companion and, in his condition, the 
equal of furious fiends and shrieking devils ? Dare they 
(claim that, for a time, he was punished with the unspeak¬ 
able torments of never-ending fires ? Dare they claim that 


THE HEAYEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 599 

he came forth broiled to a cinder ? If not, what was the 
nature of that hell ? 

As I have already explained, the writers of the Old 
Testament, of whom David was one, never spoke of hell as 
a place of punishment; but, on the contrary, as a place of 
repose—as the grave or something of a similar nature. It 
is evident, therefore, that, in the present instance, David, 
who, as I have already stated, was a believer in the doc¬ 
trine, still held by many, that the souls of the departed 
rest, for a time, in the grave with their bodies, by hell 
meant simply the grave in which he prophetically saw that 
the body of Jesus was to repose, and in which he believed 
that the soul of this same personage was also, for a time, 
to repose. In this hell, and in no other, was Jesus ever 
confined. 

“And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity ; ... it 
setteth on fire the course of nature ; and it is set on fire of 
hell ” (Jas. iii, 6). From this, we learn that the fire of 
hell and the fire of the human tongue are of exactly the 
same nature. Since, then, the fire of the human tongue 
is certainly not real fire, we know that the fire of hell can¬ 
not possibly be real fire. Indeed, without the least fear 
of successful contradiction, I boldly assert that there is 
not, in the whole Bible, a single passage which, when 
properly rendered with its context, justifies a belief in the 
doctrine of a literal local hell of fire and brimstone, such 
as is now commonly taught by the great body of the Chris¬ 
tian Church. That I am entirely safe in making this bold 
and broad assertion, has often been fully demonstrated by 
that brave and intelligent sect of semi-infidel Christians, 
or semi-Cliristian infidels, commonly called Universalists. 

“And I looked, and behold, a pale horse ; and his name 
that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed him. And 
power was given unto them over the fourth part of the 
earth, to kill with the sword, and with hunger, and with 
death, and with the beasts of the earth” (Rev. vi, 8). 
From this, we learn that “ Death” as an actor or cause, was 


600 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


wont to use “ death ” as an instrument to produce death , as: 
an effect. But how could this have been ? Could a cause 
have used itself as a means by which to produce itself? 
This must be one of the mysteries of godliness. Will the 
champions of th*> Bible please rise and explain ? Letting 
this matter pass, however, we learn that, at the time in 
question, Hell w^s a person—& soldier —who lived here on 
earth, and whose business it was to slay men, with the 
“sword ” and other instruments, and not, as our preachers 
would have us believe, to merely receive men, after they 
were dead, into his red-hot belly. Whether, like Death, 
Hell was mounted upon a horse or not, we are not in¬ 
formed. It is reasonable to assume, however, that like a 
common tramp, he went trudging along on foot. Being 
filled, as we all know that he must have been, with fierce 
fires, he could not have been otherwise than extremely 
hot—so hot that he would have severely burned the back 
of a horse. Being thus burned by him, the horse would 
have instantly thrown him off, and might have broken his 
neck. Had he undertaken to ride a mule, it would have 
kicked the devil out of him. Bushing along thus, filled 
with fire and brimstone as well as with millions of yelling 
devils and shrieking spirits forever damned, and armed' 
with a formidable sword, of which he made a terrible use, 
he must, indeed, have been, as our preachers represent 
him, a hell-of-a-fellow. 

“And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and 
death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them ; 

. . . [These last two parties, you will notice, were a couple 
of monstrous cannibals whose stomachs were always 
crammed with dead men whom they had swallowed. On 
this occasion, they had administered to them each a heavy 
dose of tartar emetic, which caused them to cast “up the 
dead which were in them.” A dose of croton oil would 
have carried “ the dead which were in them ” in the wrong 
direction]. And death and hell [after they were done 
vomiting “ up the dead which were in them ”] were cast 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 


601 


[like a couple of dirty fellows as they were] into the lake 
of fire ” (Rev. xx, 13,14). From this, we learn that, like the 
sea, hell was merely a temporary receptacle of the dead ; 
that its dead, like those of the sea, were to be “ delivered 
up ; ” and that, afterwards, as an empty and useless article, 
it was to be “ cast into the lake of fire.” Will the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible please inform us what this hell was ? 

From all that has been said upon the subject, you can 
now see clearly that, although the word hell was originally 
applied only to death or the grave, which was regarded as 
the greatest of all evils, it finally came to be applied, by 
metaphor, to whatever seemed to contain the elements of 
any kind of evil. Hence we find the term applied, indis¬ 
criminately, to evil habits, to war, to holes in the ground, 
to modes or places of punishment, to wicked men, to 
voracious fishes, etc. Those priests are guilty of a mon¬ 
strous imposition who teach that this term is ever used in 
the Bible to denote, in a literal sense, a locality filled with 
fire and brimstone, and used as a place of eternal punish¬ 
ment for unbelievers and other offenders. As I have- 
already stated, this latter form of hell was the invention 
of a later and a more corrupt age. 

As you now all know, the term hell, as now generally 
used in the New Testament, is so used, by metaphor, for 
Gehenna or Hinnom, a valley near Jerusalem, formerly 
noted for the horrible rites of Molech, and afterwards 
used as a place in which were thrown all the refuse matter 
of all the city, the carcasses of dead animals, and some¬ 
times the bodies of executed malefactors. In order to 
prevent the emanation of pestilential effluvia, from the 
vast amounts of putrid matter there collected, fires, for 
the consuming of this matter, were kept perpetually burn¬ 
ing. On account, therefore, of these perpetual fires, this 
valley came to be frequently designated as “ the place 
where the fire is not quenched.” Notwithstanding, these 
fires, however, there always were, in certain portions of 
the valley, considerable quantities of putrid matter which 


602 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


were not fully consumed. In this matter were bred im¬ 
mense numbers of worms, which greatly added to the 
horrible offensiveness of the locality, and caused it to be 
often designated as “ the place where the worm dieth not.” 
Sometimes these two fearfully descriptive appellations 
were both applied to it at once. It was then designated 
as “ the place where the worm dieth not, and the fire is 
not quenched.” At other times, it was designated by the 
terms “everlasting fire,” “unquenchable fire,” etc. Indeed, 
as a religious rite, the worshipers of Molech, while they 
held the country, seem to have kept sacred fires perpetu¬ 
ally burning in that valley. 

It is evident, therefore, that to be damned—to be “ cast 
into hell,” “ into everlasting fire,” “ into the place where 
the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched,” etc.— 
was simply to be executed as a malefactor, and to be 
thrown, after death, into this horrible valley, this only 
real hell. Naturally enough this pla^e was regarded by 
the more ignorant classes of the people with a great deal 
of superstitious fear. Many of those people believed that, 
until the resurrection, the souls of the dead remained in 
the grave with their bodies. To the imaginations of these 
people, therefore, the everlasting fires, the masses of never- 
dying worms of hell or Gehenna, were filled with the 
tormented souls of those who had been damned; of those 
who had been condemned to die as malefactors. By thus 
extending the torments of the damned indefinitely beyond 
the present life, this idea greatly heightened the horrors 
of hell. It was believed, however, that, like the sea, and 
all other receptacles of the dead, hell would finally, in the 
fulness of time, give up its dead. It was believed, too, 
that, upon being tried or judged before the unerring tri¬ 
bunal of God himself, many of these inmates of hell, 
damned by the erring judgments of men, would be finally 
acquitted of guilt and transferred to the unspeakably 
beautiful abodes of the righteous in heaven. With this 
idea of hell, the idea of a day of general judgment was 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 


603 


entirely in harmony. With the present idea of hell, on 
the contrary, which has the unutterably horrible fate of 
the damned already unchangeably fixed for all eternity, 
the idea of a day of general judgment is, undeniably, an 
extremely absurd one. 

The doctrine that, immediately after death, men are 
sent at once to their eternal places of abode, either in 
heaven or in hell, is a priestly invention of a comparatively 
recent date, and one which is not, even at the present 
time, by any means universally accepted by all the sects 
that profess the Christian Religion. This invention, as 
we have already seen, renders a day of general judgment 
an extremely ridiculous, if not a horribly cruel, farce. 
What possible good could result from the dragging of 
persons whose destinies have already been long since eter¬ 
nally and unchangeably fixed, either down from the golden 
mansions of heaven, or up from the fiery caverns of hell, 
on the pretense of trying or judging them ? Among the 
Jews, those who were damned and cast into hell were thus 
disposed of by the judgment of a human tribunal which 
was liable to err. A re-hearing, therefore, before the tri¬ 
bunal of God himself, who could not err, was a necessity, 
and was likely often to result in a reversal of the decree 
of the lower court. Among the Christians, however, those 
who are damned and cast into hell are thus disposed of by 
the judgment of God himself, who, in this special judg¬ 
ment, is no more liable to err than he would be in a general 
judgment. Will the champions of the Bible, therefore, 
or rather the champions of this modern idea of disposing 
of men at death, be so kind as to inform us of what possi¬ 
ble use the future and general judgment, which they all 
teach, can ever be ? Can it possibly result in the reversal 
of any of God’s former decrees ? Can it possibly result 
in the compelling of any of the inmates of heaven to ex¬ 
change the mansions of bliss which they have so long 
inhabited the crowns of stars which they have so long 
worn, the harps of gold on which they have so long played, 


0Q4 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

and the songs of praise to God which they have so long 
sung, for the dismal caverns of hell, the fearful flames of 
fire and brimstone, the horrible yells of demons, and the 
hideous curses of the damned ? Can it possibly result in 
the calling up of any of the inmates of hell, all burned to 
cinders as they are all bound to be, from the dismal caverns 
and unquenchable fires in which they have so long writhed, 
in which they have so long vented their fruitless cries and 
their hideous curses, and the transferring of them to the 
beautiful mansions, to all the “ joys unspeakable and full 
of glory ” of heaven ? If not, if no such changes are to 
be made, what is to be accomplished by the general judg¬ 
ment which is clearly taught in the Bible ? 

Regarding hell or Gehenna, as they did, with a great 
deal of just as well as of superstitious fear, the Jews, as I 
have already stated, were wont to restrain their children 
and others from evil courses by holding up before their 
imaginations highly colored pictures of its real or its as¬ 
sumed horrors, and in warning them that any wicked act 
on their part exposed them to imminent danger of being 
doomed to suffer all those horrors. Jesus, who was in all 
respects a Jew, who confined all his teachings to the Jews, 
and who appealed to all the opinions, prejudices, and 
superstitions of the Jews, declared that even so slight an 
offense as that of calling one’s brother a fool subjected the 
offender to the “danger of hell-fire.” And this declara¬ 
tion was true, too, with reference to the real hell-fire of 
Gehenna; for such an insult was liable to lead to a quar¬ 
rel, to murder, to condemnation—called damnation in the 
Bible—to execution, and to the fires of Gehenna. But 
who is prepared to contend that the trivial offense of call¬ 
ing one’s brother a fool, especially if he is a fool, subjects 
the offender to any great danger of the eternal and un¬ 
speakably horrible liell-fire of the Christian’s gloomy 
mythology ? As we now sometimes say of a bad man that 
he is on the road that leads to the penitentiary, or to the 
gallows, so the Jews were wont to say of a similar offender 


THE HEAYEN AND THE HELL OF THE BIBLE. 605 

that he was on the road that led to hell. “ By an easy 
metaphor,” therefore, as Webster says, Gehenna or hell, 
under the various appellations by which it was known, 
came to be used as the type of that unhappy condition 
which was supposed to await unbelievers, heretics, scient¬ 
ists, and other offenders after crossing the mystic river 
of death. 

There are also two other similar expressions, found in 
the New Testament, and used, in the same way, to denote 
this same supposed unhappy condition of the ungodly 
after death. These two expressions, which, I believe, are 
confined to the single book of Revelations, and which both 
evidently refer to the same thing are “ The bottomless 
pit ” and “ The lake that burneth with fire and brimstone.” 
These two expressions, unlike the others which we have 
been considering, were not derived from Gehenna, or from 
anything else pertaining specially to the Jews. On the 
contrary, they were derived from objects which were not 
to be found in Judea, and were used only by a man who, 
though a Jew by birth, spent many years of his life out¬ 
side of Judea, and who, while writing the book in which 
these two expressions are found, was living in a country 
in which were known the objects, just as natural and just 
as local as was Gehenna itself, from which these expres¬ 
sions were derived. But what were those objects? All 
who have ever gazed down into the crater of Vesuvius, or 
of any other active volcano have beheld one of those ob¬ 
jects ; have beheld “ the bottomless pit,” “ the lake that 
burneth with fire and brimstone.” Far down in the fright¬ 
ful depths of these volcanoes, amid the flames of fire and 
brimstone that glow there forever, the popular supersti¬ 
tion of the country, in which John was when he wrote 
“ Revelations,” located the abodes of the devils and of the 
damned. Taking advantage of this superstition, our priests 
have converted this natural object—the crater of a vol¬ 
cano—into a world of “ everlasting fire prepared for the 
devil and his angels.” 


606 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


In inventing or borrowing this hell, and in putting it 
to the use that they have, our priests have made God the 
most hideous of all monsters; a monster who, for the 
most trivial offences which he himself causes them to com¬ 
mit, torments his own poor children forever and ever in 
flames of fire and brimstone; a monster who thus torments 
these his own poor children, not for their reformation, 
which he renders utterly impossible, but for the sole pur¬ 
pose of gratifying his own fiendish love of cruelty and of 
revenge. What could be more horribly blasphemous than 
is this doctrine ? If a good being were to punish his own 
children at all, he would do so in a reasonable way and for 
their ultimate good, and not thus, beyond all reason and 
for their inevitable and eternal ruin. 

And now you know all that there is to know both of 
heaven and of hell. You now know that the whole mat¬ 
ter is a monstrous imposition gotten up by the priesthood 
as a means of keeping the people in subjection to them¬ 
selves, and of making money without honest labor. You 
now know that, when they have made you fully believe in 
the actual existence of an awful hell, on the one side, 
which, without their aid, you cannot avoid, and in the % 
actual existence of a glorious heaven, on the other, which, 
without their aid, you cannot attain, these priests have 
made you their willing slave. You now know that, when 
thus bound to them by the strongest of all mental chains 
—hope and fear—you will tamely do their bidding, and 
serve them with your time and your money. You now 
know that they will never appeal to your reason, your 
knowledge of science, or your common sense; that they 
will, on the contrary, always appeal to your blind faith, 
your passions, your sympathies, your prejudices, your 
hopes of heaven, your fears of hell, etc., and that they 
will control you, for their own interests, with their power¬ 
ful but misused magnetism. You also now know, too, 
that they do not know a particle more about heaven and 
hell than you know yourselves, and that the more intelli- 


THE HEAVEN AND THE HELL OP THE BIBLE. 607 

gent of them do not believe in the literal existence of any 
such places. You now know, further, that as shepherds, 
they are feeding their sheep on this stuff simply because 
the sheep like it, and because it makes the sheep produce 
the finest yield of wool and of mutton. You now know, 
finally, that these shepherds—the more intelligent ones of 
them at least—never themselves swallow a morsel of the 
stuff on which they feed their sheep. Knowing all of 
these things, therefore, as you now know them, will you 
continue to be sheep, to swallow down, without thought or 
examination, whatever your shepherds see fit to give you ; 
will you continue to yield wool and mutton for their 
special benefit; or will you become men and do your own 
thinking, choose your own food, and labor for your own 
benefit ? 


608 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


LECTURE SEVENTEENTH. 

THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 

Of all the impositions that have ever been put upon 
the world by priestcraft, no one, perhaps, has been more 
burdensome to the people, or more lucrative to the priests, 
than has that which is known as the Sabbath, the Lord’s 
Day, etc. Of course, I refer to the religious institution of 
that name, and not to the natural day with which that in¬ 
stitution is connected. Like every other day, the natural 
day in question is all right in itself. 

In thus attacking, as a priestly imposition, the institu¬ 
tion called the sabbath, I am doubtless arraying against 
myself one of the strongest prejudices that ever prevailed 
among the professors of the Christian Religion. And yet 
I make the attack deliberately, well knowing to what I ex¬ 
pose myself. So far from being deterred by the strength 
of the opposition which I expect to provoke, I am rather 
incited thereby to proceed. A pernicious institution that 
is very weak may be safely left to fall of itself. Not so, 
however, with one, like the sabbath, that is strong. Such 
an institution can be overthrown only by a great effort; 
and the fewer there are to make that effort, the more in¬ 
cumbent it is upon each one of them to do his entire duty. 

Believing, therefore, as I do, that the institution in 
question is a pernicious remnant of a whole system of 
priestly frauds, perpetrated long ago upon an ignorant and 
superstitious people, I would attack it though it were de¬ 
fended by every other man in the entire world. While my 



THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


G09 


whole soul yearns for the sympathy and the approbation 
of my fellow-men, I cannot purchase even these great 
boons, at the cost of my conscience and my manhood, by 
withholding my opposition to that which I believe to be a 
pernicious priestly fraud. 

“ And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it : 
because that in it he had rested from all his works which 
God created and made ” (Gen. ii, 3). This is the first 
mention, made in the Bible, of the Sabbath, and here it is 
not mentioned by name. In Ex. xx, 11, however, this pas¬ 
sage is substantially repeated, and here the seventh day— 
the day that had been blessed and sanctified—is called the 
sabbath-day. “Eor in six days the Lord made heaven and 
earth, the sea and all that in them is, and rested the sev¬ 
enth day; wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath-day, 
nnd hallowed it.” 

In these two passages, we are twice assured that “ the 
Lord blessed the sabbath-day [the seventh day] and hallowed 
[or sanctified] it.” But, in what did that blessing and that 
hallowing or sanctifying consist? And in what respect 
did the blessing differ from the hallowing or sanctifying? 
Was that day ever made to differ, in any respect, in itself, 
from the other days: Did it ever contain any more hours 
than did any other day? Did the sun ever shine more 
brightly, the rains ever fall more graciously, the flowers 
ever bloom more abundantly, or the birds ever sing more 
sweetly on that day than on any other? Was that day 
ever any freer than any other day from storms, earth¬ 
quakes, famines, pestilences, and other natural evils ? And 
were men’s passions ever any more calm, or their virtues 
any more active, on that day than on any other ? 

Since the act of sanctifying or hallowing the seventh 
day or sabbath was performed in addition to the act of 
blessing it, and subsequent to this latter act, the two acts 
must have been entirely different in their natures. Indeed, 
the words bless and sanctify are never used to express the 
same meaning. To bless means to render more happy , more 


610 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


prosperous , more excellent , etc. A blessing affects the condi¬ 
tion , the quality , etc., of the the tf/mzgr blessed , and of that 
alone. To sanctify or hallow means to render sacred , or to 
set aside for a holy use. A sanctifying or hallowing affects 
only the use to which the thing sanctified or hallowed is to 
be applied, not the character or the condition of that thing. 
A man or a thing may be sanctified and yet be no better than 
any other man, or any other thing of the same kind 

From all these things, it is evident that the blessing, 
whatever it may have been, that was conferred upon the 
day in question, must have affected the day itself , and must 
have been entirely independent of the act of sanctifying 
that day or setting it aside for a holy use. The blessing 
of that day must have consisted, not in any use or observ¬ 
ance on the part of men to which that day was sanctified, 
but in some specific modification of the character and con¬ 
dition of the day itself, by which it was rendered intrinsic¬ 
ally different from the other days and better than they were. 
This blessing—this superior intrinsic excellence of the 
seventh day—evidently must have existed just the same 
before that it did after this day was sanctified or set aside 
as a day of religious rest. Indeed, it seems to have been 
because of the superior intrinsic excellence of this day— 
the excellence derived from the blessing in question—that 
it was afterwards sanctified or set aside as a day of sacred 
rest for the Jews, God’s peculiar people. 

Since the blessing in question attached to the seventh 
day, at the time of the creation, it must have rendered that 
day, in some way, better by nature or creation than other 
days; and, since the essential nature of a thing is never 
changed, that day must still be intrinsically better than 
other days. Will the champions of the Bible, therefore, 
be so kind as to inform us in what that superior intrinsic 
excellence consisted; and when, if at all, the day in ques¬ 
tion ceased to be thus, in itself, intrinsically superior to 
other days ? If this day, which we call Saturday, does not 
now, and never did, in any material respect, differ from 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


611 


other days, then, in this matter, we have proof positive 
that, when applied to inanimate objects, God’s blessings 
are mere nullities worth no more than would be similar 
blessings or mummeries of empty words pronounced by 
myself upon similar objects. What proof, then, have we 
that, when applied to people, his blessings, in any way, 
affect either the character or the condition of those upon 
whom they are conferred ? So of his curses and damna¬ 
tions. What proof have we that either the character or 
the condition of a damned man differs, in any respect, from 
that of a man who is not damned? 

Of necessity, God’s blessings either do, or do not, in 
some way, materially affect the objects upon which they 
are conferred. If they do thus affect those objects, then 
the champions of the Bible surely ought to be able to show 
in what respect the seventh day or Saturday—the sabbath 
of the Bible—was affected by the blessing conferred upon 
it. If, on the other hand, those blessings do not, in any 
way, affect the objects upon which they are conferred— 
if they are mere meaningless mummeries, then they am 
certainly not what they profess to be. In this case, they 
are simply base impositions, and God is made to stand be¬ 
fore us in the unenviable character of one convicted of 
base imposture. 

The champions of the Bible are bound either to admit 
that God’s pretended blessings are thus all mere meaning¬ 
less mummeries—all mere impositions of the basest kind„ 
and that God himself is thus a base and convicted im¬ 
postor, or to claim that the blessing which he conferred, 
upon the seventh day did, in some way, intrinsically affect 
that day. If they take the former horn of this dilemma, 
they become bold infidels, like myself, and I have no 
further quarrel with them. If they take the latter horn, 
they are bound to show some intrinsic characteristic— 
some peculiar excellence—in which Saturday excels every 
other day. If they take this latter horn—if they actually 
do succeed in showing that, in itself, Saturday actually is. 


612 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


in some way, superior to other days—then they are bound 
to reject, as a base imposition, the sabbath or Sunday of 
the Christian Church, and to return to the observance of 
Saturday—of the sabbath of the Bible—upon which alone 
the blessing, the peculiar intrinsic superiority in question, 
was ever conferred. In any conceivable view of the case, 
the Christian Sabbath is hopelessly condemned. 

As I have already said, to admit that the blessing 
which God conferred upon the seventh day did not. in any 
way, intrinsically affect that day—to admit that that bless¬ 
ing was a mere meaningless mummery—would be virtually 
to charge God with being a base impostor. No champion 
of the Bible, therefore, I presume, will ever venture to 
make any such admission. But who, without having been 
told that the day in question had been blessed—had been, 
in some way, rendered intrinsically superior to other days— 
would ever have suspected that such was the fact? Did 
the people, during the first 2,500 years of the world’s his¬ 
tory ever discover any difference between that day and 
any other ? And can we now discover any such difference ? 
If not, what proof have we that any such difference ever 
existed at all ? As I have already said, the blessing in 
question could not have consisted in anything that was 
done, or in anything that was required to be done, by men 
on the day upon which the blessing was conferred. 11 the 
Bible be any authority upon the subject, the blessing was 
conferred some 2,500 years before the day in question was 
observed as a day of rest by men—some 2,500 years, in 
fact, before men were even informed that such a blessing 
had ever been conferred upon that day or that it had ever 
been hallowed or set aside as a day of rest. So far from 
itself constituting the blessing in question, the observance 
of the seventh day as a day of rest was, on the contrary, 
founded upon the assumed fact that that day had been 
previously blessed and thus rendered, in some unexplain¬ 
able way, better than any other day. 

From all these things, it is evident that the institution 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


613 


called the sabbath—the observance of the seventh day or 
Saturday as a day of sacred rest—was founded upon an 
imposition—upon the assumption of a blessing that never 
did exist, in connection with the day in question, outside 
of the fertile imagination of the impostor who originated 
the imposition. That this view is correct becomes still 
more apparent when we come to consider the reason 
assigned for God’s blessing and hallowing this particular 
day. That reason is that, being wearied with his six days 
of creative labor, God “ rested on the seventh day and was 
refreshed .” This reason involves the now utterly exploded 
doctrine that the entire universe was literally created, all 
out of nothing, in six literal days of twenty-four hours 
each, by mechanical means—by the manual labor of God 
himself. It also involves the absurd and blasphemous doc¬ 
trine that, like a man, God is capable of becoming physically 
wearied with physical labor , and of needing, like a man, 
physical rest and refreshment. These two doctrines unde¬ 
niably make God a finite—a physical or corporeal being 
totally incapable of either creating or sustaining the infinite 
universe. It is now a well known fact that anything which 
is subject to the purely physical vicissitudes or conditions 
of weariness and of rest and refreshment, is capable of 
being worn out and destroyed by simply increasing the 
labor that produces the weariness, and withholding the 
consequently more necessary rest and refreshment. This 
is a self-evident fact, and hence requires no proof. No 
intelligent person will dispute it. 

If, then, the reason assigned for the blessing and the 
hallowing of the seventh day be a true one—if God act¬ 
ually did, all out of nothing, by physical or manual labor, 
create the entire universe, in six literal days—if he act¬ 
ually did make the earth flat and stationary, the sky 
solid, etc., and actually did, to keep them from falling, set 
the sun, the moon, and the stars, like so many nails, into 
the under surface of this solid sky, and if with this purely 
physical labor, he actually did become physically so weary 


€14 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


lliat he had to rest physically a whole day in order to be¬ 
come physically refreshed, then, in this matter, we un¬ 
deniably have proof positive that God is capable of being 
utterly destroyed by overwork and want of rest. Whether, 
therefore, the reason in question be a true one or not, it 
certainly leaves the champions of the Bible in a very un¬ 
pleasant dilemma. If they admit that the reason is a false 
one, then they are bound to admit also that the sabbath is 
founded upon an imposition, and that, consequently, it is 
itself an imposition. If they make these admissions, they 
abandon the whole controversy, and leave me nothing more 
io say. If, on the other hand, they contend that the reason 
is a true one—that God actually did perform all the purely 
physical labors mentioned, that he actually did become 
physically exhausted with these labors, and that by rest¬ 
ing a w hole day—by letting the new universe run itself for 
twenty-four hours—he actually did become physically re¬ 
freshed, then they are bound to admit that he is capable 
of being worn out and destroyed. Which ho/n of this un¬ 
pleasant dilemma will they choose ? 

Besides all this, what is there so remarkably excellent 
in rest or idleness that the first day on which, after the 
creation, anyone w r as ever idle, should have been thus 
blessed and honored above all other days? Would not 
idleness have prevailed to a sufficient extent among men 
without having had this premium placed upon it ? Would 
it not have been better to encourage labor by placing a 
premium upon it ? Of necessity, God’s work was either 
complete or incomplete at the end of the sixth day. If it 
was complete, then he could not have done otherwise than 
rest. In this case, his cessation from labor being com¬ 
pulsory—being enforced by the very condition of things— 
could not possibly have involved any merit on his part. 
Why, then, should he have established a perpetual institu¬ 
tion, the sabbath, to honor and commemorate an act in¬ 
volving no merit? If, on the other hand, his work was in¬ 
complete, then, in ceasing to labor when he did, in neg- 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


615 


lecting ever to complete that work, he was undeniably 
guilty of a demeritorious act. And should such an act 
have been commemorated and held up for the imitation of 
men by such an institution as the sabbath ? 

I am aware that many of the champions of the Bible 
teach that the institution of the sabbath, and the division 
thereby of all time into weeks of seven days each, was in¬ 
tended, not only to commemorate God’s unmeritorious act 
of cessation from labor, but also to record, as it were, the 
fact of a special creation and the time occupied in the ac¬ 
complishment of that creation. And the Bible seems to 
justify this teaching. But what if it does ? In preceding 
lectures, I have fully proved that no such special creation 
was ever performed in six days, or in any other period. 
If, then, the sabbath, and, consequently, the week, were 
instituted to commemorate any such creation, or to com¬ 
memorate God’s rest at the close of any such creation, 
then they were certainly instituted for the express purpose 
of commemorating a base and pernicious priestly fabrica¬ 
tion. 

Besides this, the Bible’s pretended history of that cre¬ 
ation represents God as resting and being refreshed on the 
seventh day in question, in a manner peculiar to that day 
alone ; in a manner never indulged in by him either before 
that day or after it. But in what could that peculiar rest 
and refreshment have consisted? So far as we know, and, 
indeed, so far as we can conceive, God never had but two 
kinds of labor to perform. The one of these was the 
labor of creating the universe, and the other, the labor of 
sustaining it. If, then, the rest in question ever occurred 
at all, it must, of necessity, have consisted in a cessation 
from the one or the other of these two kinds of labor. 
If, however, it consisted in a cessation, or, rather, in an 
abstaining from the temporary work of creation, then 
there was nothing at all in it peculiar to the particular 
day in question. With the exception of the six days dur¬ 
ing which he had been engaged in the work of creation, 


616 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


God had spent the entire eternity of his existence in that 
very kind of rest or abstinence ; and, after the close of 
those six days, he simply returned to this same state of 
eternal rest or inaction, and has continued in it ever since. 
That rest or abstinence, then, not having been confined to 
the seventh day, was not, in any way, peculiar to that day. 
This rest from creative labor, therefore, cannot be the form 
of rest in which God then indulged, although the Bible 
clearly intimates that it is. The rest in which he then in¬ 
dulged was confined to the first seventh day of the world’s 
existence, and to that day alone. That rest ceased as soon 
as God had become thereby fully refreshed. That rest, 
too, was specially intended to afford the weary Creator the 
refreshment of which he then, and then only, stood in 
need. But God’s rest or abstinence from the work of 
creation did not thus cease at the close -of the seventh day 
in question. That rest continues yet unbroken; and is 
not designed to afford God needed refreshment, as was the 
one day’s peculiar rest in question. 

But from what labor, except that of creation , could God 
have rested during one whole day and no longer ? Could 
he have thus rested from the labor of sustaining the uni¬ 
verse in all of its wonderful beauty and harmony, and in all 
of its infinitude of motions ? As yet, no planet of the entire 
universe had more than started upon its course. As yet 
its orbit and its rate of motion were untried and unknown. 
Had God, then, rested a whole day from sustaining and 
governing it, his newly-made universe would have been so 
completely wrecked that he would have had to make 
another. In what, then, did the peculiar rest of that one 
day consist ? And in what respect did God’s condition 
after he was rested and refreshed differ from his condition 
before he had received the benefit of that rest and refresh¬ 
ment? Does his condition, like that of a man or a horse, 
differ at different times and under different circumstances ? 
If it does, may it not sometimes become, like that of a 
man or a horse, a fatally bad condition? May he not, like 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


617 


a man or a horse, finally perish ? And, if he does thus 
change in his condition, why do the champions of the 
Bible all teach that he is, in all respects, utterly unchange¬ 
able? If, on the other hand, his condition never does 
and never did change, then is not the story of his change, 
on the day in question, from a condition of iveariness to 
one of refreshment , bound to be utterly false ? And is not 
the Sabbath founded upon this utterly false story? Which 
horn of this dilemma will the champions of the Bible 
take ? 

Another proof that the sabbath of the Bible was in¬ 
vented by wicked and designing men, and not instituted 
by an infinitely wise and merciful God, is found in the fact 
that the Bible everywhere makes the performing of any 
common labor upon that day a greater crime, and one to 
be more fearfully punished, than it makes lying, stealing, 
murder, or any other wdcked act, when committed on any 
other day. To claim, as the Bible and its champions do, 
that, simply because, after only six days of labor, he had 
returned, on the day in question, to his eternal normal 
condition of idleness, God himself made such a distinction 
in favor of that day is simply to be guilty of the blas¬ 
phemy of charging him with being a very unreasonable 
being. Indeed, to claim, as the Bible and its champions 
do, that God himself believed that he had actually created 
the entire universe—a little flat and stationary earth over¬ 
arched by a solid sky or firmament in which, to keep them 
from falling, the sun, the moon, and the stars were set, in 
six literal days; that he believed that he had actually 
been exhausted by the purely physical labor of this crea¬ 
tion, and that, on the seventh day, he had actually rested 
and been refreshed; to claim, I repeat, that God himself 
ever believed all this priestly nonsense, is to be guilty of 

the blasphemy of charging him with being a-fool. 

And to claim, as the Bible and its champions do, that by 
the most cruel of all known punishments, he enforced the 
observance of an institution founded thus upon his own 



618 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


gross ignorance, upon a base priestly invention, is to be 
guilty of the additional, and the still more shocking, blas¬ 
phemy of charging him with being an extremely atrocious 
monster. 

For even gathering a few sticks on the sabbath, with 
which to kindle a fire for the comfort of his little ones in 
very cold weather, a poor man, who could not otherwise 
protect his children from cold, had to be beaten to death 
with stones. “ Six days may work be done, but in the 
seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to the Lord: whoso¬ 
ever doeth any work in the sabbath-day he shall surely be 
put so death ” (Ex. xxxi, 15). “ Ye shall kindle no fire 

throughout your habitations upon the sabbath-day ” (Ex. 
xxxv, 3). “ And while the children of Israel were in the 

wilderness, they found a man that gathered sticks upon the 
sabbath-day. . . . And the Lord said unto Moses, The 
man shall be surely put to death : all the congregation 
[including his nearest and dearest friends and relatives] 
shall stone him with stones without the camp. And all 
the congregation brought him without the camp, and 
stoned him with stones, and he died ; as the Lord com¬ 
manded Moses ” (Num. xv, 32-36). 

Dare the champions of the Bible commit the horrible 
blasphemy of charging God with having been, as the 
Bible here declares that he was, the author of these mon¬ 
strous laws ? Dare they also commit the additional blas¬ 
phemy of charging him with having had thousands of 
poor men, like the one above mentioned, cruelly murdered 
for such offenses as trying to keep their little ones warm 
on the sabbath, and with then having abandoned, as we all 
know that he has, all attempts to enforce the observance 
of that day? Has the reason assigned for keeping the 
seventh day holy ever changed ? Have God’s opinions in 
regard to that day and the manner of its observance ever 
changed ? If not, if none of these changes have ever 
occurred, why is it that God, who is represented by his 
worshipers as a just and impartial being, does not now 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


619 


liave men stoned to death, as he formerly did, for laboring 
upon the sabbath-day ? 

To me it seems far more likely that laws so atrocious 
should originate in hell than in heaven, and far more 
likely that they should originate among the priests on 
earth than in either of the other places. Atrocious, too, 
as these laws were in their general principles, they were 
rendered far more atrocious by the unjust discrimination 
that was always made in their application. Their burdens 
fell almost entirely upon the poor alone. Upon the priests, 
no portion of their burdens fell at all. As we elsewhere 
learn, these worthies, who filled all the offices, were per¬ 
mitted, or rather permitted themselves, to go right on 
performing their ordinary work, the offering of sacrifices, 
the cooking and eating of rich viands, etc., on the sabbath, 
the same as on any other day. Indeed, like our priests 
with their Sunday, those priests derived far greater profits 
from their trade on the sabbath than on any other day. In 
this fact, therefore, w T e have strong presumptive evidence 
that the institution called the sabbath was invented by the 
priests themselves for their own special benefit. 

Upon the rich, the burdens of this monstrous institu¬ 
tion fell very lightly. The incomes of the rich being de¬ 
rived almost entirely from the products of their farms, the 
increase of their flocks, the rents of their lands, the interest 
of their money, etc., and not from their own manual labor, 
were not materially diminished by the observance of the 
sabbath day. Their grain kept right on growing, their 
flocks increasing, their rents and interest accruing, etc., 
the same on the sabbath as on any other day. Giving at¬ 
tention to their flocks and their other property was about 
all that these men did on any day, and this they were per¬ 
mitted to do all the same on the sabbath. To the rich, 
therefore, the observance of the sabbath was more in name 
than in reality, and involved few burdens or inconven¬ 
iences of any kind. 


t 


620 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

Besides this, the rich, being well clothed and fed, and 
living in comfortable houses, did not need to gather sticks, 
on the sabbath, or to perform any other servile or common 
labor, which was the kind of labor specially discriminated 
against by the sabbatical laws. “ In the seventh month, 
in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath . . . 
Ye shall do no servile work therein ” (Lev. xxiii, 24, 25). 
With the poor, however, it was quite otherwise. Their 
time being their only source of support for themselves and 
their families, they found it very hard indeed to be robbed 
of one-seventh of that time, for the benefit of an army of 
pampered priests, and for the commemoration of God’s 
pretended return, after only six days of labor, to the con¬ 
dition of perfect idleness in which he had spent all the 
balance of the eternal past. The poor man, for instance,, 
who was compelled to work six days of the week away from 
home, for a rich creditor, or for bread—who had no means 
with which to buy fuel, and no time during these six days 
to gather any—found it very hard indeed to be debarred 
from the poor privilege of gathering a few sticks, on the 
only remaining day, with which to kindle a fire for his 
poorly fed and half-naked little ones who were almost per¬ 
ishing of cold. And yet, as we have already seen, if, under 
such circumstances, he did gather a few sticks on the sabf- 
bath, he was cruelly stoned to death, “ as the Lord com¬ 
manded Moses.” A rich man could care for his cattle on 
the sabbath, but a poor man could not care for his children. 
From time immemorial it has been a maxim among the 
despots of the world, that, in order to be kept tame and 
submissive, the great toiling masses of the people—those 
who produce all the wealth—must be kept perpetually 
poor, perpetually dependent upon the priests, the land 
owners, the money-lenders, and others, who, while they 
produce none of the wealth of a country, enjoy it all. And 
the sabbath seems to have been instituted for the express 
purpose of keeping the great toiling masses thus perpet¬ 
ually poor—thus perpetually dependent upon the cunning, 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


621 


and the fortunate few, tlie priests and other privileged 
classes—who, without labor, manage to enjoy all the fruits 
that labor brings. In view of the oppressions of this in¬ 
stitution, and of others with which it was connected, we 
cease to wonder that the masses of the Jewish people 
always seemed to prefer the worship of any god, who im¬ 
posed no such burdens upon his people, to that of the God 
who was said to be the author of this and of so many 
other monstrously oppressive institutions. 

Besides all these things, the sabbath of the Bible was 
confined to the Jewish nation alone. No other people were 
ever required, or ever expected, to observe it; and we, of 
the present time, are under no more obligation to observe 
it, or any other day or institution in its stead, than we are 
to observe circumcision, the passover, the feast of taber¬ 
nacles, the offering of sacrifices, the going in unto our 
widowed sisters-in-law to raise up seed to our deceased 
brothers, or any other purely Jewish rite, custom, or cere¬ 
mony. Indeed, had any other people concluded to observe 
the sabbath, their doing so would have thwarted the very 
design for which it was ostensibly instituted. These facts, 
I will now proceed to prove. 

As I have already stated, God blessed the seventh day 
and hallowed it at the close of the work of creation. He did 
not, however, at that time, nor for 2,500 years afterwards, 
require men to observe that day as a day of rest. By the 
acts of blessing and hallowing it, he affected the day itself 
alone, just as a man affects the land itself alone when he 
plows and harrows it. The reason for thus blessing and 
hallowing the day in question existed with God alone. 
Men had nothing to do with that reason—nothing to do 
with God’s being weary, or with his resting and being re¬ 
freshed—and, consequently, nothing to do with the blessing 
and the hallowing of the day on which this rest and 
refreshment were enjoyed. Indeed, at the time of which 
we are speaking, there was but one man in existence, and 
he, having been made of fresh mud late on the preceding 


622 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


evening, could hardly have been as yet sufficiently dried 
and toughened to take any active part in God’s affairs. At 
any rate, having as yet never seen a full day, and having 
never as yet either labored or rested, that mud man could 
not possibly have had any idea either of six days of labor 
or of one day of rest. Besides this, not having as yet 
fallen, he was not as yet condemned to labor at all; and, 
had he never fallen, all days would evidently have been to 
him exactly alike—all of them equally free from enforced 
labor or enforced rest. It is certain, therefore, that the 
blessing and the hallowing in question were perfect in. 
themselves—were perfect before men had anything to do 
with the day upon which they were conferred, and that 
they would have remained thus perfect, had men never ex¬ 
isted—never observed that day at all. Men, too, would 
have existed all the same, and woujld have been just as 
happy and prosperous as they have been, had the day in 
question never been blessed and hallowed at all. Indeed, 
although this day was thus blessed and hallowed at the 
close of the work of creation, men do not seem to have 
known anything about the matter until they were informed 
of it by Moses some 2,500 years afterwards. How Moses 
came to know anything about this matter we are not in¬ 
formed ; nor are we informed why it is that, even yet, we 
are totally unable to discover any peculiar excellence in 
the day upon which these special marks of God’s favor 
were conferred. 

Be all these things as they may, however, it is certain 
that the reason assigned in the Bible for the observance of 
this day, or of any other, by men, as a day of rest, did not 
exist till the time of Moses, and that it then extended to 
the Hebrews alone. It would be the height of absurdity, 
therefore, to assume, as some have, that, for over 2,500 
years, the people had been observing this day without 
ever having been required to do so, and without ever hav¬ 
ing known any reason why they should do so. But what 
was the reason on account of which the Hebrews, and they 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


623 


alone, were required to observe this day? It was simply 
the fact that they, and they alone, had been miraculously de¬ 
livered from bondage in Egypt. This was a very different 
reason from that assigned for the blessing and the hallow¬ 
ing of this same day some 2,500 years before. As I have 
already shown, therefore, this blessing and this hallowing, 
having been made perfect in themselves so vast a number 
of years before, could not, in any way, have depended 
upon, or have been, in any way, connected with either the 
observance by men of the day upon which they had been 
conferred, or the reason for that observance. As I have 
likewise already shown, men had nothing at all to do either 
with the acts of blessing and of hallowing this day, or 
with the reason that led God to perform those acts. So in 
regard to the observance of this day by him. None but 
the Hebrews had anything to do, either with that observ¬ 
ance, or with the reason upon which that observance was 
founded. All of this I will now prove. 

As to what God’s reasons were for selecting the seventh 
day, as the one to be observed by his chosen people, I do 
not certainly know. Indeed, so far as my subject is con¬ 
cerned, those reasons do not make a particle of difference. 
He had a right to select any day he saw fit. It was very 
natural, however, that he should select that day upon 
which, for reasons entirely his own, he had long before 
conferred some kind of blessing. In speaking of what 
God did, I wish, of course, to be understood as meaning 
simply the acts of the priests, who, as I truly believe, in¬ 
vented both God and the sabbath, and who, for their own 
special benefit, fabricated the whole story under consider¬ 
ation. 

“ Six days thou slialt labor, and do all thy work; but 
the seventh day is the sabbath [or rest day] of the Lord 
thy God [but not as yet the sabbath or rest day of men] ; 
in it thou shalt not do any work, . . . [And why not work 
now on that day as well as in the past ? Because] thou 
wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and [because] the 


624 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty 
hand and by a stretched out arm [and because] : therefore 
[that is, on account of this wonderful deliverance] the 
Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath day” 
(Deut. v, 13-15). Here we have clearly stated the reason, 
and the only reason ever given in the Bible, why the 
Hebrews were required to observe the sabbath or rest 
day of the Lord as a sabbath or rest day for themselves. 
From these same passages, we also learn why it was 
that none but the Hebrews were ever required to keep 
this day, and why it was that even the Hebrews were 
never required to keep it until after their departure 
out of Egypt. We learn that the reason for observing 
the day never applied to any other people at all, and 
that it did not apply even to the Hebrews until after 
their departure from Egypt. 

From all this, it is clear that, among the Jews, the ob¬ 
servance of the sabbath, like that of the passover, the 
feast of tabernacles, etc., had a definite and appropriate 
signification. The object of that observance was certainly 
not, as many of the champions of the Bible would now 
have us believe that it was, to commemorate God’s return, 
after being wearied if not disgusted with only six days of 
labor, to his normal condition of utter and eternal idle¬ 
ness. Of this matter, the Hebrew people knew nothing 
at all until they were told of it by Moses; who probably 
knew as little about it as did they themselves. And, when 
informed of it by Moses, this was a matter in which they, 
a people who cared very little for either scientific or his¬ 
torical knowledge, could have felt very little interest. To 
such a people, it could have made very little difference 
whether God had, or had not, been weary some 2,500 years 
before—whether he had, or had not, rested and been re¬ 
freshed on a particular day—whether he had, or had not, 
on account of that rest and refreshment, pretended to bless 
and hallow that day by muttering over it certain words, 
which there were none to hear or to record, and which had 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


625 


not the slightest effect upon the day itself, or upon any¬ 
thing, or anybody else. To these people, the story of 
these strange events must have appeared like the mere 
fable which we now know that it actually was. This fab¬ 
ulous return of God, after so brief a period of labor, to 
eternal idleness, having never before been commemorated, 
or even heard of by men, the Hebrews, burdened as they 
then were with a multitude of cares, labors, and dangers, 
could hardly have been induced to begin its commemora¬ 
tion at so late a date as that of the time of Moses, and 
upon so slight evidence as his utterly unsupported as¬ 
sumption of such a return. In regard to their release from 
bondage, however, the people were all, in the highest de¬ 
gree, interested. This release was a very recent and a 
truly wonderful occurrence, and they could be easily made 
to believe that, in order to keep themselves and their pos¬ 
terity in perpetual and grateful remembrance of this de¬ 
liverance at his hands, God would require them to observe 
a certain day in a certain manner, in commemoration of 
that deliverance. They could easily be made willing, too, 
to observe such a day for such a reason, so long at least 
as the memory of their deliverance was fresh in their 
minds, so long at least as they felt the full force of the 
fact that their rest on this day signified their rest from the 
unrequited toils of slavery. 

To other nations, however, who had never been thus 
released from bondage in Egypt, and toward whom God 
had always acted as an enemy rather than as a friend, the 
observance of this day would have had no such signifi¬ 
cance, no significance at all. Indeed, as I have already 
stated, the observance of this day by other nations would 
have effectually defeated the very object which its observ¬ 
ance by the Jews was intended to accomplish. Had it 
been observed by the whole world, it would not generally 
have commemorated any release from bondage in Egypt, 
and, by its general prevalence, it would have ceased to 
have any such special .signifiance even among the Jews. 


626 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


These facts are made still more clear by the following 

passages; 

“ Speak thou also unto the children of Israel [not unto 
the whole world], saying, Yerily my sabbaths ye [not the 
whole world] shall keep : for it [the sabbath] is a sign be¬ 
tween me and you [not between me and the whole world] 
throughout your generations. ... It is a sign between 
me and the children of Israel [and them alone] forever ” (Ex. 
xxxi, 13-17). From these passages, we learn that, in addi¬ 
tion to its being designed to commemorate the deliverance 
of the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt, the sabbath, 
was also designed to be a sign of the special union, covenant, 
or partnership, into which God had just then entered with 
these particular people , and with them alone. In other words, 
this institution, like the passover, the feast of tabernacles, 
etc., was designed to be one of the exclusive trade marks- 
of the house or firm of Jehovah and Israel; and, without, 
forgery, it could not be used by any other parties. Since, 
if also used by other parties, a trade mark or sign, 
would cease to be of any special benefit to the party who 
first adopted it, you see clearly that, had other nations 
also used the sign or trade mark of the sabbath, it would 
have ceased to be of any special benefit to the firm of Je¬ 
hovah and Israel who first adopted it. It would have 
ceased to be any certain sign of the special union into- 
which these two parties had entered with each other! 

Since, then, the sabbath was intended to remain “ for¬ 
ever ” as a sign between God and the Jews , as a sign of the 
peculiar covenant or union into which he had entered with 
them, and them alone, it was certainly not intended to be 
ever used by any other gods, or by any other people. To 
this peculiar covenant or union, there were two parties, 
and only two, God and the Jews ; and you can no more 
bring in other people as parties on the one side with the 
Jews, than you can bring in other gods as parties on the 
other side with Jehovah. And since the thing signified 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 627 

cannot belong to any other parties, the sign itself, the 
sabbath, cannot properly be used by any such parties. 

All other nations, therefore, who have ever used this 
sign have been guilty of forgery ; guilty of pretending that 
God had entered into a special covenant or union with them 
when, he had not; guilty of pretending that they were his 
peculiar people when they were not. In other words, the 
sabbath was a kind of promissory note, given by God to 
the Jews, whereby, in consideration of certain peculiar 
services rendered to him by them, he bound himself to pay 
to them certain things of very great value. All other 
people, therefore, who have ever used the sabbath, have 
forged for themselves a copy of this promissory note. In 
doing this they have feloniously made God seem to be 
their debtor when he was not, and have feloniously tried 
to collect from him things of great value, to which they 
had no right, and which he had never promised to them. 
In committing this forgery, the Christians and all others, 
if there be any others, who are guilty of these crimes, 
have acted just as wickedl}* as the common felon acts when 
he forges a note on his best friend, and collects, or at¬ 
tempts to collect, money which was never promised to 
him, and to which he never had the shadow of a right. 

Still another proof that the sabbath was never de¬ 
signed for the whole world is found in the fact that 
its observance would have been utterly impossible to 
the inhabitants of the polar regions, in which the days do 
not correspond with the days in other parts of the world; 
and in the additional fact that, in many other parts of the 
world, the cold is so intense that the people would perish 
if they w~ere not permitted to kindle fires on the sabbath 
the same as on other days. Besides all these things, if 
God ever intended that the gentiles should also observe 
the sabbath, why did he never say a word to them on the 
subject, while he was continually lecturing the Jews on 
the same subject ? Without being so informed, how were 
the gentiles to know that, while no other Jewish institu- 


628 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

tion applied also to tliemselves, tlie sabbath did ? In view 
of all these things, can the gentile champions of the Bible 
inform us by what means, if not by downright theft or 
forgery, they came into possession of the sabbath ? 

Having now fully shown that, if there was ever any 
moral obligation connected with the observance of the 
sabbath, that obligation was confined to the Jews alone, I 
will proceed, without further comment, to show that, even 
among the Jews, there were many persons of high author¬ 
ity who regarded the sabbath, and other similar institu¬ 
tions, as priestly impositions of a pernicious character, 
and not as beneficent institutions of divine origin. “Bring 
no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination 
unto me ; the new moons and sabbaths , the calling of as¬ 
semblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity , even the solemn 
meeting ” (Is. i, 13). Here, by an authority which the 
champions of the Bible will hardly dare to dispute, the 
sabbath, with its “ solemn meeting ” is denounced as an 
“ iniquity ” which God would gladly “ away with,” if he 
could. In Bom. xiv, 5, 6, Paul also says : “ One man es- 
teemeth one day [evidently the sabbath] above another; 
another esteemetli every day alike. Let every man be 
fully persuaded in his own mind. He that regardeth the 
day, regardeth it unto the Lord ; and he that regardeth 
not the day, to the Lord he doth not regard it.” From 
this, we learn that the gentile Christians, for whose in¬ 
struction Paul was specially commissioned to preach, were 
left at liberty to do as their own consciences dictated in 
regard to the observance or the sabbath. 

“ But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees 
which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise 
them [the gentile converts to Christianity], and to com¬ 
mand them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles 
and elders came together for to consider of this matter. 
. . . Then [after the matter had been thoroughly dis¬ 
cussed] pleased it the apostles and elders, with the whole 
church, to send chosen men of their own company to 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


629 


Antioch with Paul and Barnabas ; . . . and they wrote 
letters by them after this manner: The apostles and elders 
and brethren send greeting unto the brethren which are of 
the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia. Forasmuch 
as we have heard, that certain which went out from us 
have troubled you with words, subverting your souls, say¬ 
ing, Ye must be circumcised, and keep the law: to whom we 
gave no such commandment: for it seemed good to the Holy 
Ghost [a very high authority upon such a matter, was he 
not?], and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than 
these necessary things; that ye abstain from meats of¬ 
fered to idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, 
and from fornication: from which if ye keep yourselves, ye 
shall do well” (Acts xv, 5, 6, 22, 23, 24, 28, 29). From 
these passages, we learn that the burden of keeping the 
law, like that of circumcision, was strictly forbidden to be 
put upon “the brethren which are of the Gentiles;" and 
since the keeping of the sabbath constituted an important 
portion of that burden, the keeping of that day was cer¬ 
tainly forbidden to be required of those gentiles. And 
this prohibition was made by the apostles, the elders, the 
whole church at Jerusalem, and the Holy Ghost. What 
higher authority could we have? By what authority, 
then, do the champions of the Bible now violate this de¬ 
cree, and put upon “the brethren which are of the Gentiles ” 
the keeping of the sabbath—one of the most obnoxious 
portions of the burden, forbidden, by this highest of all 
ecclesiastical tribunals, to be put upon the gentile converts 
to Christianity? If these champions cannot show some 
competent authority for their acts, do they not stand be¬ 
fore us convicted of the fearful crime of “ subverting your 
souls” convicted of this crime, too, by the apostles, the 
elders, the whole church, and the Holy Ghost ? 

As I have already stated, the sabbath was designed to 
be “ forever a sign ” of the peculiar union or covenant into 
which God, the sole contracting party on the one side, had 
entered with the children of Israel, the sole contracting party 


630 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


on the other side. But what was the nature of that pecul¬ 
iar union or covenant ? The Bible everywhere represents 
it as a marriage union, by the terms of which God, as the 
bridegroom, bound himself to refrain from all love inter¬ 
course with any other people, and the Jewish Church, as 
the bride, bound herself to refrain from any love inter¬ 
course with any other god. The sabbath, therefore, being 
a sign of this particular union between these two sole con¬ 
tracting parties, constituted a certificate of the marriage 
which had taken place between them. God always so re¬ 
garded it, always kept himself aloof from other people, 
and always denounced as whoredom any violation, on the 
part of the bride, of the terms of that marriage—any going 
aside after other gods. 

“And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a 
wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms; for the 
land [the Jewish Nation, his bride] hath committed great 
whoredom [how? Simply by] ; departing from the Lord 
[her husband]. . . . And I will visit upon her [that is, 
punish her for the offenses committed by her in] the days 
of Baalim, wherein she burned incense to them [other 
gods], and she decked herself with her ear-rings and 
her jewels, and she went after her lovers [those other 
gods], Sind forgat me [her husband], saith the Lord” (Hos. 
i, 2; ii, 13). After duly punishing his bride, however, for 
thus violating her marriage vow—after being as it were, 
divorced from her for a time—God forgives her, and says : 
“ I will betroth thee unto me forever [there is never again 
to be any divorce] ; yea, ... I will even betroth thee 
unto me in faithfulness : and thou slialt know the Lord ” 
(Hos- ii, 19, 20). Since this marriage with the Jews was to 
last “forever,” it is bound to be still in existence. The 
Jewish Church, then, being still God’s bride, the Chris¬ 
tian Church, in sharing the matrimonial rights of that 
bride, necessarily does so. either as a polygamous sec¬ 
ond wife, or simply as a shameless harlot who defiles 
the true wife’s bed. She can show no proof, however, of 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


631 


'even a polygamous marriage, unless it be a forged and 
now greatly mutilated copy of the marriage certificate of 
the true wife whose place she has usurped, and whose bed 
she has defiled. 

The Jews, however, do not seem to have had much re¬ 
gard for the obligations which their marriage with God 
placed them under as his bride. During a great portion 
of their career as a nation, they were constantly turning 
from the Lord, to whom they had been so solemnly united in 
marriage, and going “whoring” as God always called it, af¬ 
ter other gods. This incorrigible disposition, on the part of 
his bride, to go whoring after other gods, kept the Lord near¬ 
ly all the time in a towering rage of jealousy. And well it 
might, for there is no offense so unpardonable in a bride 
as is that of wantonly running after other men, and es¬ 
pecially after her old lovers, the former rivals of the hus¬ 
band. When we thus understand the relation in which 
the Jewish Nation stood to God, we can easily understand 
why it was that he always regarded the violation of the 
sabbath and the going after other gods as the gravest of¬ 
fenses his people could commit. These offenses, involving, 
as they did, the violation of a solemn marriage contract, 
rendered the offenders, in God’s sight, whores of the very 
worst description. 

Admitting, however, for the sake of argument, that the 
-champions of the Bible are correct in claiming, as they 
almost universally do, that the commandment, “ Remember 
the sabbath day to keep it holy,” was intended to be binding 
upon all other men, the same as upon the Jews, how does 
it happen that this commandment was never given to any 
but the Jews, and how does it happen that these cham¬ 
pions themselves—how does it happen that, with very few 
exceptions, all the Christians of the world—are now found, 
with one accord, violating this commandment—rejecting 
the sabbath which this commandment requires to be kept 
holy ? On all hands, it is admitted that this sabbath was 
ithe seventh day of the week, or Saturday. This sabbath 


632 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


was established by those most potent of all arguments,, 
pretended revelations from God and real rivers of human 
blood. Why, then, was it abandoned ? Why and when 
did its observance cease to be a duty ? Why and when did 
it become a duty to observe some other day in its stead ? 
Dare the champions of the Bible even attempt to answer 
these fair and important questions ? If not, I will proceed 
to show that the change of the sabbath from Saturday to 
Sunday was nothing more nor less than a monstrous 
priestly fraud. 

I have already shown that, although God blessed the 
seventh day at the close of the creation, he did not require 
it or any other day to be observed as a sabbath by men 
until 2,500 years afterwards ; and that he did not then re¬ 
quire it to be observed by anybody except the children of 
Israel. I have already shown, too, that he did not require 
even the children of Israel to observe it because he had 
rested on that day 2,500 years before, but because he wished 
to have them, by the observance of this day, keep them¬ 
selves and their posterity in grateful remembrance of the 
wohderful deliverance which he had given them from bondage 
in Egypt , and of the peculiar union or covenant into which 
he had entered with them. 

In order, however, to set up their totally unfounded 
claim that the sabbath was designed for the whole world, 
the champions of the Bible are compelled to totally ignore 
the many passages of scripture which clearly confine the 
sabbath to the Hebrews alone. These champions are also 
compelled, in like manner, to totally ignore the many pas¬ 
sages of the scripture which clearly teach that the sabbath 
was instituted for the sole purpose of commemorating the 
deliverance of the Hebrews from bondage, and of serving 
as a sign of the covenant relation into which God had 
entered with those people. Having thus totally ignored 
the plain teachings of all these scriptures—having thus 
ignored the only two reasons assigned in the whole Bible 
for the instituting of the sabbath—these champions un- 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


63S 


blushingly assume that, because God rested on that day at 
the close of creation, the observance of the day became 
binding upon all men from that time forward; equally 
binding when the whole human race consisted of only one 
poor mud man, not yet dry, who, being only a few hours 
old, at^Tlierbeginning of the first sabbath, could not pos¬ 
sibly have had any idea of either labor or rest. 

As authority for thus founding the obligation to ob¬ 
serve the sabbath upon the fable which has God rest on 
tiiat day, the champions of the Bible are wont to quote the 
following passage : “ Six days slialt thou labor and do all 

thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord 
thy God ; in it thou shalt not do any work . . . For in 
six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all 
that in them is, and rested the seventh day ; ivherefore the 
Lord blessed the sabbath-day [or rest-day] and hallowedit ” 
(Ex. xx, 9-11). By this passage, however, the champions 
of the Bible really prove nothing at all. The former por¬ 
tion of the passage simply reiterates a command, already 
made, to rest on a certain day—a command which the 
people already understood to be founded upon the fact 
that they had been released from bondage in Egypt. But' 
the people very naturally wished to know why they should 
rest on the “ seventh day ” in preference to any other. As 
yet, this matter has not been explained to them. In re¬ 
peating the commandment, therefore, to observe the sab¬ 
bath, Moses very properly gave the people, in the latter 
portion of the above passage, the reason why that particular 
day had been selected, in preference to any other, as the; 
one to be observed. An d that reason was that, in the cre¬ 
ation, God had worked on the other six days and had 
rested on that day; and that “ wherefore [that is, because 
of this rest on that day] the Lord blessed the sabbath-day 
and hallowed it.” 

Every grammarian knows that, when used as it here is, 
the conjunction ivherefore or therefore is always employed 
to introduce the description or statement of an effect, a 


€34 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


result, or a conclusion, and to connect that description or 
statement with the preceding description or statement of 
the cause, the fact, or the argument from which that effect, 
that result, or that conclusion proceeds. In the passage 
just quoted, therefore, the blessing and the hallowing of 
the seventh day are represented as the results or conse¬ 
quences, and the only results or consequences, of God’s 
having rested on that day. The fact that God rested on 
that day did not involve any obligation at all on the part 
of men to rest on the same day. If the author had meant 
to teach that the obligation to observe the seventh day as 
a day of rest followed, as a result or consequence of God’s 
having once rested on that day, he would, with reference 
to that rest of God, have said, not as he did say, “ Where¬ 
fore God blessed the sabbath-day and hallowed it,” but, 
“ Wherefore God commands all men to observe this day as a day 
of rest .” This would have left no room for doubt in regard 
to the author’s meaning. And when referring to the real 
reason assigned by God for requiring the Sabbath to be 
observed, when referring to the fact that the people had 
been miraculously delivered from bondage in Egypt, the 
author does, in this very same clear manner, say: “ There¬ 
fore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sab- 
bath-day.” The whole passage reads as follows : “ And 
remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, 
and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through 
a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm : therefore the 
Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the sabbath-day ” 
(Deut. v, 15). Here the reason for requiring the sabbath 
to be observed is clearly given ; and this reason, which is 
the only one given in the whole Bible, indisputably con¬ 
firms the obligation to observe that day to those alone 
who had been released from bondage in Egypt. The 
whole matter may be made perfectly clear by combining 
the various passages in question as follows: 

(Moses)—“ Six days slialt thou labor, and do all thy 
work : but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


635 


God: in it thou shalt not do any work.” (People)—“ But, 
Moses, please inform us why we shall not do any work on 
the seventh day?” (Moses)—“Because thou wast a ser¬ 
vant in the land of Egypt and . . . the Lord thy God 
brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a 
stretched out arm: and because, on account of this won¬ 
derful deliverance, the Lord thy God commanded thee to 
keep the sabbath-day.” (People)—=“ Thank you, Moses! Your 
answer satisfies us that it is, indeed, our solemn duty to 
observe some one day in every seven as a day of rest. But 
why are we not permitted to observe any day we please of 
the whole seven ? Why has the seventh day been fixed 
upon for our sabbath or rest day in preference to any 
other?” (Moses)—“Because the seventh day is the sabbath 
of the Lord thy God” (People)—“ But what are we to 
understand by the ‘sabbath of the Lord?’” (Moses)— 
“ You are to understand that, * in six days the Lord made 
heaven and earth, the sea and all that in them is, and 
rested [or sabbathed] the seventh day.’ ” (People)—“But 
did God’s act of resting on that particular day render it 
any better, any more worthy of our observance than any 
other day?” (Moses)—“Of itself, God’s act of resting 
on that day did not have any such effect upon the day; 
but, on account of that rest, ‘ the Lord blessed the sabbath 
day [or rest day] and hallowed it; ’ and the acts of blessing 
and hallowing did, as the highest of all possible honors, 
distinguish that day above all others , and render it more 
worthy than any other to be observed as our sabbath” 

In order, however, to make the sabbath seem to be 
the common property of the whole world, the champions 
of the Bible, as I have already shown, are compelled to 
flatly contradict all of these plain scriptures, and to blas¬ 
phemously declare that “ God did not command thee, as 
these scriptures so positively declare that he did, ‘ to keep 
the sabbath day ’ because ‘ thou wast a servant in the land 
of Egypt and’ because ‘the Lord thy God brought thee out 
ihence ,’ but because, some 2,500 years before, he had rested 


636 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


on that day.” These champions, however, fail to inform 
us how it happened that the reason assigned by them for 
the commandment in question existed for so many cen¬ 
turies before the commandment itself was given. They 
also fail to inform us how it happened that the command¬ 
ment was never given at all to any but the Jews, and that, 
when given to them, it was based upon reasons with which no 
other people had anything to do. Does not their conduct 
in regard to this matter exhibit unmistakable marks of 
deliberate fraud? Is it not the felonious attempt of a 
harlot to obtain possession of the marriage certificate o£ 
the wife whose bed she has defiled? 

Having thus, by means which we see will not for a 
moment bear the test of fair examination, established, to 
their own apparent satisfaction, the doctrine that, from 
the very close of the creation, the observance of the sab¬ 
bath had been made binding upon all men, having thus, 
with great difficulty and not a little bloodshed, estab¬ 
lished this doctrine on the single fact that a certain fablej 
after having God wearied with six days of labor, has him 
rest on the day in question, we would expect the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible to cling tenaciously to this day as the 
only true sabbath. To our astonishment, however, we 
find them, at the present time, almost universally rejecting 
this day, and, in its stead, observing another day which is 
not only utterly unsupported by the all-important fact in 
question, but against which that fact bears with all its 
weight. Is there not something very suspicious in this 
matter ? 

Teaching as they do, that the obligation involved in 
the commandment to observe the sabbath rests entirely 
upon the single fact that God had once rested on that par¬ 
ticular day , can the champions of the Bible, with the slight¬ 
est shadow of consistency, claim that they fulfil that obli¬ 
gation, or obey the commandment which was designed to 
enforce the fulfilment of that obligation, by observing a 
day with which the obligation is not, ; in any way, com- 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


637 


nected, and which the commandment expressly declares 
shall not be so observed ? When hard-pressed, most of 
them now claim that it is sufficient to give God, by way of 
rest or idleness, any one-seventh we please of all our time. 
This, however, is simply to insult him, and not to obey his 
commandment at all. According to their own teachings, 
God, for a particular purpose—the commemoration of his 
own period of rest at the close of creation—strictly com¬ 
mands us all to observe the particular day upon which that 
rest occurred, and just as strictly forbids us to thus ob¬ 
serve any other day. Admitting that these teachings be 
correct, then it is evident that, by observing some other 
day, and by connecting with that other day some other 
idea—an idea never even hinted at by God himself—these 
champions are using the surest means of thwarting the 
only object for which, according to their own teachings, 
the sabbath w-as ever instituted. Besides this, by teach¬ 
ing that God simply requires one-seventli of our time, and 
that we may give him any one day of the week w^e please, 
they blasphemously degrade him from the rank of a kind 
and loving father to that of a merciless landlord who in¬ 
discriminately demands, as a kind of rental, 14 2-7 per 
cent, of all our time. Of w r hat possible use to God can this 
tribute of time be, especially when it tends to thwart 
rather than to accomplish the object for which the sabbath 
w r as instituted? Do not fresh proofs of fraud constantly 
appear ? 

Had the commandment to observe the sabbath been 
given by God, without any explanation at all of the object 
for which that institution was originated, that command¬ 
ment alone ought to have been sufficient of itself to confine 
our observance to the particular day and the particular 
manner prescribed by that commandment. When, how¬ 
ever, God condescends, as the champions of the Bible all 
admit that he does, to give us a specific reason wdiy one 
particular day and no other should be observed, and why 
it should be observed in one particular manner and in no 


638 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


other, then we are certainly guilty, not only of ungrate¬ 
fully disobeying, but, also, of blasphemously mocking him, 
when w r e pretend to fulfil his commandment by observing, 
as we do, some other day in some other manner. 

To render the case still more clear, let us suppose an 
exactly parallel case. Let us suppose that seven men are 
arrested on a charge of murder. Let us suppose that, 
when brought to trial, six of them are clearly proved to be 
innocent, and are ordered by the court to be discharged 
while the seventh man is just as clearly proved to be 
guilty, and is sentenced to be executed by hanging. Le 
us suppose, further, that, adopting the logic of the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible, the sheriff, who is charged with the 
execution of these orders, holds that, just so some one man 
of the seven is killed, it makes no difference which one 
that is nor how the killing is done. Let us suppose, 
finally, that, as the result of this logic, he releases the 
seventh man, whom he was ordered to hang, and to wdiom 
alone of the whole seven the sentence of death was ap¬ 
plicable, and shoots one of the other six, whom he was. 
ordered to discharge, and to whom the sentence of death 
was not at all applicable. Would the champions of the 
Bible hold that, in acting thus, this sheriff had faithfully 
fulfilled his orders? Would they not, on the contrary, 
hold that he was guilty of a double and extremely culpable 
act of disobedience ? 

And are these champions themselves any less guilty 
than this man would be of double disobedience? In their 
hands they hold two orders which they admit came from 
God himself. The one of these orders strictly requires 
them to observe as a sabbath or rest day one particular 
day of the week, and recites a good reason why such ob¬ 
servance is applicable to that day, and to that day alone. 
The other order, by peremptorily commanding them to 
labor on all of the other six days, just as strictly forbids 
them to observe any of these days as a sabbath or day of 
rest. With these two confessedly divine orders in their 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


639 


hands, however, these presumptuous champions persist¬ 
ently violate the one by refusing to rest on Saturday, as 
the order requires them to rest, and the other by resting 
on Sunday, one of the days upon which the order forbids 
them to so rest. As the sheriff, in the case which we have 
supposed, only aggravated his offense of releasing the con¬ 
demned man by the killing of an uncondemned man in his 
stead, so these champions only aggravate tlieir offense of 
violating the real sabbath—the day hallowed by God him¬ 
self to the purpose of holy rest, by observing an unhal¬ 
lowed day in its stead. They would evidently be far less 
guilty if they observed no day at all. 

According to their own testimony, the sabbath was in¬ 
stituted by God himself, an unchangeable being, and, for 
a definite and unchangeable reason, fixed by him upon the 
seventh day. It is evident, therefore, that, if the testi¬ 
mony of these champions be worth anything, this institu¬ 
tion was made, from the beginning, utterly incapable of 
being either abolished, or changed to another day, by any 
authority inferior to that of God himself. If, then, these 
champions cannot show positive proof that God himself 
changed this institution from the seventh day to the first, 
they are bound to stand before the world convicted of the 
grave offenses of contradicting their own former testimony, 
of basely deceiving the people, of sacrilegiously violating 
the true sabbath, and of blasphemously mocking God by 
offering to him the unhallowed services of a false sabbath. 

If those who have rejected the sabbath of the Bible, 
and adopted Sunday in its stead, really believe that the 
commandment, “ Remember the sabbath day [so called 
from God’s having sabbathed or rested on that day] to 
keep it holy,” is just as well fulfilled by refusing to “ Be- 
member the sabbath day,” and by refusing “to keep it 
holy ”—-if they really believe that this commandment is 
just as well fulfilled by the observance of some other day 
as it is by the observance of the sabbath itself—if they 
really believe that God is simply a land-Lord indiscrim- 


640 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


inatelj exacting, as his rental, 14 2-7 per cent, of the time 
of all of his tenants—if they really believe that it makes 
no difference to him from what part of the week that 14 2-7 
per cent, is taken, why do they not permit every man to 
observe or pay to God whichever day of the week he 
pleases ? Why is it that they try to compel all other per¬ 
sons to observe the same day that they themselves have 
selected ? Why is it that, by the most horrible of all im¬ 
aginable tortures, they have put to death untold thousands 
of men, women, and children for refusing to observe Sun¬ 
day as the sabbath, or for continuing to observe the sab¬ 
bath of the Bible ? Why is it that, even in this boasted 
land of liberty, they have opj)ressive laws enacted to com¬ 
pel the people, regardless of their individual wishes or 
preferences, to observe Sunday, and Sunday alone, as the 
sabbath? If I rest on every Wednesday, or if I rest one- 
seventh of every day in the week, do I not as fully observe 
the sabbath—do I not as fully pay to the land-Lord his 
rental—as do they ? What better authority can they show 
for their pretended observance of the sabbath than I can 
show for mine? When, therefore, I have observed my 
sabbath in the middle of the week—when I have thus paid 
my share of the land-Lord’s rental—why is that, because I 
labor on the following Sunday, they denounce me as an 
ungodly wretch—an impious profaner of the sabbath, on 
the certain road to eternal damnation? And why do they, 
even in this life, punish me as a sabbath-breaker ? 

The most intensely pious, the most thoroughly ortho¬ 
dox persons that I ever knew, were certain men that used, 
almost weekly, to prowl around the outskirts of my prem¬ 
ises, on Sunday, trying to catch me at work, that they might 
make an example of me, vindicate the sacredness of their 
so-called sabbath, promote the glory of God, and, last but 
not least, accumulate a little filthy lucre on Sunday—a few 
dollars of my honest earnings, torn from me as a fine and 
paid to them for their infamously pious act of informing 
against me. After spending the whole week, as my busi- 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


641 


Tiess then compelled me to spend it, in a sedentary occu¬ 
pation, I did not need physical rest on Sunday. On the 
contrary, I really did need physical exercise, and I really 
did wish to work upon my grounds. To me, therefore, the 
espionage of these truly pious men was a real—a hurtful— 
persecution. My health as well as my grounds suffered in 
consequence of it. I did not, however, much blame these 
godly men themselves. They were simply doing what, 
under similar circumstances, almost every other truly 
zealous Christian would feel it his duty to do. They were 
simply trying to “ kill two birds with one stone ”—to serve 
God, and, at the same time, to make a little money on 
Sunday. I did, however, and I do now, denounce, as a 
burning disgrace to America and to civilization, the law 
that demands such persecutions. All of our so-called Sun¬ 
day laws should have perished with the Spanish Inquisi¬ 
tion. And yet such laws have been found to be absolutely 
indispensable to the sustaining of this abominable priestly 
imposition called the sabbath. 

Time will not permit me to give anything like a full 
history of the rejection of the sabbath of the Bible, by the 
Christian Church, and the adoption, in its stead, of Sun¬ 
day, the sabbath or sacred feast-day of the idolatrous wor¬ 
shipers of the sun. Suffice it to say that, although Sun¬ 
day was observed by the early Christians as a day of feast¬ 
ing and rejoicing, often as a day of licentious excesses, in 
-commemoration of the resurrection of Jesus on that day, 
it was not, for several centuries, regarded by them as the 
sabbath, as a substitute for the sabbath, or as, in any 
other sense, a holy day. The people regarded it just as 
we now regard Washington’s birthday, the Fourth of Jul}', 
-or any other day which, for some specific reason, has come, 
by common consent, to be devoted to general enjoyment. 
As we do not now hold that there is anything peculiarly 
sacred about any of these days, and as we do not hold 
that we are under any moral obligation to observe them, 
so it was with the .early Christians in regard to Sunday. 


'642 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


If they saw fit to do so, they might, without either sin or 
blame, stay at home and work on that day. When, how¬ 
ever, they did meet to celebrate the day, their rules re¬ 
quired them to celebrate it with demonstrations of joy 
alone. They were not permitted to mourn, to kneel in 
prayer, or to do anything else inconsistent with the ob¬ 
ject of the meeting, which was “ to see a jolly good time 
generally.” 

Of these meetings, Tertullian says : “ We count fast¬ 

ing or kneeling in worship on the Lord’s day to be unlaw¬ 
ful. We rejoice in the same privilege also from Easter to 
Whitsunday ” (De Corona, Sect. 3). Since it would have 
been utterly impossible for them to observe, as a sabbath, 
the whole period of fifty days that intervenes between 
Easter and Whitsunday, and since they observed this 
whole period just as they observed Sunday, it is evident 
that this latter day, which came to be called the Lord’s 
day, was not observed as a sabbath. Indeed, on account 
of their joy, the people were permitted to indulge in many 
liberties on this day which were denied to them on all 
other days. In Apostolical Constitutions, Book 2, Sect. 
7, Par. 59, we read : “ Now we exhort you, brethren and 

fellow-servants, to avoid vain talk and obscene discourses, 

. . . since we do not permit you so much as on the Lord's 
days , which are days of joy , to speak or act anything un¬ 
seemly.” From this, it is clear that, if they had been per¬ 
mitted to engage at all, on any day, in “ vain talk and ob¬ 
scene discourses,” or in anything else of an “ unseemly ” 
character, that day would certainly have been the so-called 
“Lord’s day.” Notwithstanding this exhortation, how¬ 
ever, the “brethren and fellow-servants” did, on the day 
in question, indulge, to so immoderate an extent, in “vain 
talk and obscene discourses,” and in other things of an 
“ unseemly ” character, that, by their more moral and 
temperate pagan neighbors, they came to be utterly ab¬ 
horred as an abominably licentious people. 

When was it, then, and by what authority, that the 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


643 


sabbath of the Bible was rejected, by the Christian Church, 
and Sunday, the sacred feast-day of the sun-worshipers, 
adopted in its stead ? In answer to these questions, I will 
say that the change of the Church from the observance of 
the sabbath of the Bible to that of the sun-worshipers 
was very gradual, and that it was not completed before the 
year 325, in which the first Council of Nice virtually pa¬ 
ganized the Christian Beligion, by expunging from it the 
sabbath and almost everything else in it that had been de¬ 
rived from the Jews, and by engrafting upon it, in the 
place of the institutions and doctrines thus expunged, the 
sacred feast-day of the sun, and many others of the relig¬ 
ious institutions and fundamental doctrines of the pagans: 
who evidently controlled that Council, and who, from that 
time onward, just as evidently controlled the wdiole Church.. 
Indeed, after these changes were thus made, very little of 
Christianity remained to the Church, except the name. 
Even after that time, however—even as late as the fifth 
century—there were certain sects in the Church who stilt 
persisted in observing the sabbath of the Bible, and who 
chose rather to be persecuted as heretics, by the Church, 
than to observe the pagan sabbath that the Church had 
adopted. 

It is a well established historical fact that the week of 
seven days, just as w r e now have it, was in general use 
among the pagan nations of the east, and that, so far from 
having been borrowed from the Jews, as the champions of 
the Bible would have us believe that it was, it had been 
handed dowm among these pagan nations from time im¬ 
memorial. The origin of this, the most ancient of all the 
artificial divisions of time, as well as the reason of its 
general prevalence among the nations wdio were not in 
communication with each other, is clearly perceived in the 
names of the days of which it is composed ; the names¬ 
having been given in honor of the sun, the moon, and then 
five planets that were known to the ancients. On account 
of the motions, real or apparent, in which they differed 


644 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


from wliat are called fixed stars, these celestial bodies 
were, naturally enough, regarded by the ignorant and 
superstitious people of ancient times, as living and con¬ 
scious beings—as the principal deities that controlled the 
affairs of men and of the universe. Indeed, half the 
people of the world still regard these bodies in this same 
light. The fact that these bodies were all equally visible, 
and all equally objects of interest to all nations, is sufficient 
to account for the well-known fact that a remarkable simi¬ 
larity to one another prevails among all the religions of 
the world, as well as for the fact that the week, as a divi¬ 
sion of time, prevails among almost all nations. The 
same fact also explains why it was that the number seven 
was almost universally regarded as a sacred number. 
Thus, in the New Testament, we have seven candlesticks, 
suggestive of seven lights, and many other similar 
examples. 

Of these seven celestial bodies, however, the sun, on 
account of his immense superiority, in size, in brilliancy, 
and in power, w*as very naturally, and very properly, fixed 
upon as the great chief of these deities. All things of 
which men then had any certain knowledge being pro¬ 
duced by his power or influence, he was very naturally 
and very properly fixed upon as the “ Creator,” the “ Su¬ 
preme Being,” the “ Most High God,” the “ God of gods 
and Lord of lords,” the “ Giver of life,” a “ Consuming 
Fire ” [What could be a more appropriate appellation of 
the sun?], the “God that Dwelleth [as doth the sun] in 
Light Unapproachable,” etc. In short, the sun was re¬ 
garded as a principal deity, in all the religions of the east, 
that of the Jews not excepted. “ Then spake Joshua to the 
Lord . . . and said [while speaking to the Lord, you will 
notice], Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon,” etc. “And 
there was no day like that before it or after it that the Lord 
hearkened unto the voice of a man” (Josh, x, 12-14). Here 
the Lord addressed was nothing more nor less than the sun, 
which, on this occasion, did hearken unto Joshua’s voice 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


645 


and stand still when he ordered it to do so, but which had 
never before thus “ hearkened unto the voice of a man,” 
and has never done so since. This was the “ Most High 
God,” the “ Lord over all,” and, in Joshua’s opinion at 
least, was a very different being from Jehovah, who was 
simply the tutelary divinity of the Hebiews alone, and 
who, if the stories of the Bible are not all mere fictions, 
had, a thousand times, before that day, “ hearkened unto 
the voice of a man ; ” of Moses and of other men, and 
who, afterwards, frequently did the same. From this 
great prominence of the sun, the day, named in his honor 
and consecrated to his service, was observed by most 
nations with very great solemnity. 

The pagans, who generally entertained a superstitious 
regard for the sacredness of Sunday, very naturally be¬ 
came intense haters of the Jews, who habitually profaned 
that day, and who, as we all know, were wont to observe 
Saturday, the sabbath of the Bible. On the other hand, 
the Jews, who were always noted for their bigotry and in¬ 
tolerance, became equally intense haters of these pagan 
worshipers of the sun—these violaters of the only true 
sabbath. Indeed, so intense did this mutual hatred finally 
become that, on each side, it extended to all the religious 
institutions peculiar to the other. On the one side, the 
Jews came to regard Sunday with a kind of abhorrence as 
a day prostituted by their hated rivals to the monstrous 
uses of idolatry. On the other side, for similar reasons, 
the pagans came to regard the Jewish sabbath in the same 
light. From the most tender age, the children, on each 
side, were, as a religious duty, so thoroughly imbued with 
a prejudice against the so-called sabbath of the other that 
they were not likely ever to honor that day by making it a 
special day of rest, or of worship. If they observed the 
day at all, it was only in such a way as to dishonor it and 
to exasperate their rivals who so greatly revered it. 

Among the early Christians, therefore, who were com¬ 
posed of both Jews and pagans, these strong prejudices 


646 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


still existed, and proved to be the source of innumerable 
and extremely bitter dissensions. On the one hand, as a 
a matter of course, the Jewish portion of them still tena¬ 
ciously clung to the sabbath of the Bible. Many of these, 
indeed, were as much Jews after their conversion to Chris¬ 
tianity as they were before. They still held to circumcision, 
still scrupulously observed the sabbath, the passover, and 
all the other institutions and ceremonies of the Jewish 
Beligion. They differed from the other Jews only in ac¬ 
cepting Jesus as the Messiah of the Jewish nation, while 
the balance of the Jews rejected him as an impostor and 
still looked for the true Messiah to come. On the other 
hand, equally as a matter of. course, the pagan portion of 
the early Christian Church, many of whom were only 
nominally converted to Christianity, still regarded Sunday 
and many other pagan institutions, doctrines, and cere¬ 
monies with a great deal of reverence, while they looked 
upon the sabbath of the Bible, as they did upon circum¬ 
cision, the passover, the feast of tabernacles, etc., as a 
purely Jewish institution with which themselves had noth¬ 
ing to do. 

Many of these pagan converts, not caring to continue 
the observance of Sunday, or of any of the other sacred 
days of paganism, and not believing it was their duty to 
begin the observance of Saturday, or of any of the other 
sacred days of Judaism, set themselves in opposition to 
every form of the sabbatical institution. They argued 
that, since God and nature did not observe any particular 
day as a sabbath or rest day, men were under no obliga¬ 
tion to so observe any day. Among these anti-sabbatarians, 
may be mentioned Justin Martyr, Origen, and many other 
noted fathers of the Church. Could these men have suc¬ 
ceeded in breaking down that institution, they would have 
conferred an immense favor upon the human race. 

As I have already said, however, most of the pagan 
converts to Christianity were strongly inclined, by their 
.early teachings, to still regard Sunday as a sacred day—a 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE 


647 


day of solemn worship. In thus giving to Sunday the 
preference over the Jewish or Bible sabbath, they were 
greatly strengthened by the thought that they were there¬ 
by conferring an honor upon the day upon which Jesus 
was supposed to have arisen from the dead. And thus, for 
more than three centuries, did these two sabbaths wage 
against each other a war of extermination in the bosom of 
the Christian Church. The champions of Sunday, how¬ 
ever, although rapidly coming into the ascendency, never 
claimed for the observance of that day anything higher 
than human authority, rendered sacred by its great an¬ 
tiquity and by its general acceptance among men. In this 
respect, they differed very widely from the champions of 
the sabbath of the Bible who always did claim for this 
day a divine origin. 

Although a vast majority of the converts to Christian¬ 
ity, and especially of those only nominally converted there¬ 
to, soon came to be drawn from the ranks of paganism, 
and although, from this fact, the reverence for the sabbath 
of the Bible was constantly growing less and less in the 
church, while, from the same fact, that for the sabbath of 
the pagans was just as constantly, and by just the same 
ratio, on the increase, nevertheless, as I have already in¬ 
timated, the champions of the former day seem to have 
remained in the ascendency, especially in the eastern por¬ 
tion of the church, for over three hundred years. Of this 
long and bitter conflict between the two sabbaths, and of 
its final result, Coleman speaks as follows : “ During the 

early ages of the church, it [Sunday] was never entitled 
‘the sabbath this word being confined to the seventh day of 
the week, the Jewish Sabbath , which, as we have already 
said, continued to be observed for several centuries by the 
converts to Christianity. No law or precept appears to have 
been given by Christ or the apostles, either for the abroga¬ 
tion of the Jewish Sabbath, or the institution of the Lord’s 
day, or the substitution of the first for the seventh day 
of the week. The observance of the Lord’s day was or- 


648 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


dered [who ordered it, and by what authority did he order 
it?] while yet the sabbath of the Jews was continued; 
nor was the latter suspended until the former had acquired 
the same solemnity and importance [by what authority, 
except that of pagan partiality, did it acquire this “ same 
solemnity and importance ?”], which belonged,, at first 
[why not always?] to that great day which God originally 
ordained and blessed. . . . But in time, after the Lord’s 
day was fully established [by what authority, except that 
of paganism in the church, did it become thus “ fully es¬ 
tablished?”], the observance of the Sabbath of the Jews 
was gradually discontinued, and was finally denounced as 
heretical ” (Anc. Christ. Exem., chap. xxvi). In this and 
other similar quotations, the brackets are mine. 

The ascendency which, as I have already shown, was, 
at first, held in the church, by the advocates of the Jewish 
or Bible Sabbath, seems to have been finally lost by them 
and gained by their rivals, the advocates of the pagan sab¬ 
bath, about the year 321. In that year, Constantine, Em¬ 
peror of Borne, a monster whose hands were almost con¬ 
stantly dripping with the blood of murder ; a monster who 
was guilty of almost every form of imfamous crime ; a 
monster who was still a zealous defender of all the sacred 
days and of all the monstrous rites of paganism ; a mon¬ 
ster whose very name befouls the page of history upon 
which it is written, issued an edict requiring Sunday, the 
pagan sabbath, to be, on pain of death, solemnly observed 
as a day of rest and of worship: worship offered, not to 
the God of the Jews and Christians, but to the God of the 
pagans, the God from whom the day derived its name, and 
in honor of whom it had long been observed. 

In addition to his desire to promote the interests of 
the pagan religion, Constantine also desired “to have 
nothing [neither gods nor sacred days] in common with that 
most hostile rabble, the Jews.” Hence his edict to break 
down the Jewish Sabbath. Sylvester, wdio was then the 
head bishop or pope of Borne, and who was a corrupt and 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


649 


pliant instrument in the hands of this mighty pagan 
monster, endorsed this edict, and thus, by the power said 
to have been conferred upon Saint Peter and his successors 
in office, loosed all Christians from all obligation to observe 
the sabbath of the Lord their God, and bound them under 
the most solemn obligation to observe the sabbath of a 
purely pagan deity. So far as its observance in the Chris¬ 
tian Church was concerned, the sabbath of the Bible never 
recovered from the deadly blow thus given it by a crime- 
blackened pagan emperor and his instrument, a corrupt, 
cunning, and sycophantic Catholic priest. 

Soon after this, the party that advocated the observ¬ 
ance of the sabbath of the Bible dwindled into insig¬ 
nificance. It is true that, in certain obscure parts of 
Christendom, this sabbath still survived for many years. 
Its survival, however, was that of a wasted invalid who 
could not, and of a hunted outlaw who dared not, ever 
again appear openly before the powerful and now thor¬ 
oughly paganized church. Its open observance became 
once more confined, almost exclusively, to the Jews, for 
whom alone it was instituted, and to whom alone there 
was a good reason for observing it. 

Paganism having thus fully triumphed over the Bible 
and over primitive Christianity, not only in regard to the 
sabbath, but, also, in regard to many fundamental doc¬ 
trines—in regard even to the gods themselves—the devout 
pagans, who now constituted the great body of the church, 
bowed the knee in worship, on the Sun-god’s day, with 
their faces to the sun, seeing God in that great luminary, 
just as they saw him therein before their nominal conver¬ 
sion to Christianity. So much, indeed, did their mode of 
worship still resemble that of the professed worshipers of 
the sun, that they were often charged with actually wor¬ 
shiping that luminary. And this charge they did not 
always care to deny. Indeed, for the express purpose of 
promoting their own interests by increasing the number of 
conversions from the ranks of paganism, the Christian 


650 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


priesthood purposely brought their religion to so nearly 
resemble paganism, that, in order to become a Christian, 
a pagan had very little more to do than to merely adopt 
the name of Christianity. His conversion did not neces¬ 
sarily make any material change either in his forms of 
worship or in the ideas of deity upon which these forms 
were founded. From this time onward, therefore, con¬ 
versions from paganism to the now powerful Christian 
Church were made by the millions. “ The most respect¬ 
able Bishops,” says Gibbon, “ had persuaded themselves 
that the ignorant rustics [upon whom the Church always had 
depended for the great majority of her converts] would 
more cheerfully renounce the superstition of paganism, if 
they found some resemblance , some compensation, in the 
bosom of Christianity. Remember that these were “ the 
most respectable Bishops .” What, then, of the less respect¬ 
able Bishops, and of the common priests ? So thoroughly, 
indeed, was Christianity now paganized that if at times 
a pagan convert was required to pay adoration to Jesus or 
some other new deity, he still, in this new deity, recognized 
his old god by the halo of the sun which, in pictures and 
paintings, always was, and still is, thrown around the head 
of the new deity. The new deity, too, like the old, was 
always represented to his imagination as a glorious lumi¬ 
nary of some kind, never as an opague body. He was 
always represented as a “ Consuming Fire ”—as one whose 
countenance gave forth light similar to that of the sun. 
“And there shall be no night there; and they need no 
candle, neither light of the sun [their old god]; for the 
Lord God [their new deific luminary] giveth them light ” 
(Rev. xxii, 5). In what respect did this new deity or lumi¬ 
nary differ from the old, and why were the worshipers of 
the new luminary, like those of the old, always called the 
•“children of light.” 

In his History of the Sabbath, page 354, J. N. Andrews 
says : “ The body of Nominal Christians, which resulted 

from this union of pagan rites with Christian worship, ar- 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


651 


rogated to itself tlie title of Catholic Church, while the 
true people of God, who resisted these dangerous innova¬ 
tions, were branded as heretics, and cast out of the church. 
It is not strange that the Sabbath should lose ground in 
such a body, in its struggle with its rival, the festival of 
the sun.” The sabbath of the Bible, however, although 
thus trampled under foot and crushed in the Church, was 
not yet entirely dead. This we learn from the fact that, 
in the year 364, nearly thirty years afterwards, the Council 
of Laodicea had to complete its destruction by a decree 
which not only commanded the observance of the pagan 
sabbath, but also pronounced a curse of eternal damnation, 
including, of course, death at the stake in this life, upon 
all who should dare to Judaize, as it was called, by ob¬ 
serving the sabbath of the Bible—by obeying the Fourth 
Commandment. 

In his Dissertation on the Lord’s-day Sabbath, pp. 33, 
34, 44, 1633, speaking of these things, Prynne says : “ It 

is certain that Christ himself, his apostles, and the primi¬ 
tive Christians for some good space of time, did constantly 
observe the seventh-day sabbath, . . . the evangelists 
and Saint Luke in the Acts ever styling it the Sabbath 
day, . . . and making mention of its . . . solemnization 
by the apostles and other Christians; ... it being still 
solemnized by many Christians after the apostles’ times, 
even till the Council of Laodicea [a.d. 364], as ecclesiastical 
writers and the twenty-ninth canon of that Council testify, 
which runs thus: Because Christians ought not to Ju¬ 
daize, and to rest in the Sabbath, but to work in that day 
[which many did refuse at that time to do]. But prefer¬ 
ring in honor the Lord’s day (there being then a great 
controversy among Christians which of these two days 
. . . should have precedency), if they desired to rest, they 
should do this as Christians. Wherefore if they shall be 
found to Judaize [by observing the sabbath of the Bible— 
by obeying the Fourth Commandment], let them be ac¬ 
cursed from Christ.’ . . . The seventh-day Sabbath was 


652 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


. . . solemnized by Christ, the apostles, and primitive 
Christians till the Laodicean council did in a manner quite 
abolish the observation of it. . . . The council of Laodicea 
[a.d. 364] . . . first settled the observation of the Lord’s 
day, and prohibited . . . the keeping of the Jewish Sab¬ 
bath under an anathema.” 

You now know how the Christians came by their coun¬ 
terfeit sabbath or so-called Lord’s day. I have fully shown 
that, from the very beginning, the whole thing has been a 
monstrous priestly fraud; or, rather, three such frauds. 
The first of these frauds was the one by which that fear¬ 
ful incubus called the sabbath was originally fixed upon 
the Jews. The second was that by which this incubus 
was extended to all men. The third was that by which 
the sabbath of the Bible was made to give place to that of 
the pagans; to the Lord’s day or Sunday as we now have 
it. All of these frauds have already been sufficiently ex¬ 
plained. 

That the so-called sabbath nowin use throughout near¬ 
ly all Christendom is one of the basest frauds ever im¬ 
posed upon the ignorance, superstition, and fear of the 
people, no honest and intelligent person who is acquainted 
with its history will pretend to deny. The true Catholic, 
however, blinded by priestcraft as he necessarily must be, 
can see nothing at all of a fraudulent nature either in the 
proceedings by which the sabbath of the Jews was ex¬ 
tended to the Christians, or in those by which this sab¬ 
bath, after it had been thus extended, was discarded and 
the sabbath of the pagans adopted in its stead. He holds 
that his church, through her supreme head, the pope, re¬ 
tains the power which is said to have been once bestowed 
by Jesus upon Saint Peter, to infallibly bind or loose what¬ 
ever she may see fit, both on earth and in heaven. He 
holds that, in the exercise of this her power of infallibility, 
she actually did first bind the original Jewish sabbath 
upon all men, and then actually did loose all men from 
every obligation to observe that sabbath and bind them 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


653 


under the most awful obligations to observe the sabbath 
of the pagans. To the Catholics, therefore, who, in this 
matter, undeniably do exhibit a certain kind of consist¬ 
ency, I have no more to say. But how is it with my 
Protestant brethren who deny that the Catholic Church 
has any power either to annul or to reverse any of the 
commandments of God? According to the testimony of 
the Bible, God commands them to rest on a certain day. 
The Catholic Church, however, forbids them to rest on 
that day. God commands them to labor on a certain other 
day. The Catholic Church, however, forbids them to labor 
on that day. Here the Catholic Church directly reverses 
two of God’s most positive commandments, and, in both 
cases, the Protestants obey her commandments, and dis¬ 
obey his. Will they please rise and explain why they do 
this ? In thus preferring the commandments of the Cath¬ 
olic Church to those of God, do they not unequivocally 
declare, much louder than they could declare in words, 
that they regard her as higher authority than they regard 
him—that they regard her as more worthy than he to be 
honored and obeyed ? Is there any possible way for them 
to escape this extremely grave imputation, except by an 
admission that she does indeed stand, as she claims to 
stand, in God’s stead, and that, consequently, her decrees 
are the infillible decrees of God himself? 

Of necessity, the Catholic Church either does or does 
not possess the power, legitimately derived from God 
through Jesus and Saint Peter, to thus suspend, annul, or 
reverse a positive commandment of God. If she does 
possess this power in regard to any one commandment, 
such as the one in question, then she indisputably pos¬ 
sesses the same power in regard to all the other command¬ 
ments of God—in regard to all the other portions of God’s 
Holy Word. She can suspend, annul, or reverse the en¬ 
tire Bible, and either leave us without a Bible or give us 
a Bible of her own composition. If, as she claims, she 
actually does possess all this power—and she certainly 


654 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


possesses it all if she possesses any portion of it—then 
she certainly is, as she claims to be, the only true Church, 
and all Protestants certainly are, as she declares them to 
be, so many vile heretics on the certain road to eternal 
damnation. If, on the other hand, she does not possess all 
of this power, or any portion of it, then her pretended re¬ 
versal of the commandments in question was certainly 
nothing more nor less than an impious mockery which cer¬ 
tainly could not, and just as certainly did not loose us 
from the obligations formerly resting upon us to observe 
the sabbath of the Bible, nor place us under any obliga¬ 
tions to observe her pretended sabbath—the sacred festi¬ 
val day of the pagan sun-worshipers. Her whole action 
in this matter was certainly null and void if nothing worse. 
And all Protestants know, or at least, claim to know, that 
she actually does not possess any power at all to legiti¬ 
mately make any change whatever in any portion of God’s 
Holy ord; that all her claim to such power is the im¬ 
pious arrogance of Antichrist. And yet knowing, or, at 
least, claiming to know, all of this, these Protestants, with 
very few exceptions, all join her in her impious and arro¬ 
gant acts of violating the Fourth Commandment of the 
Decalogue, trampling under foot the sabbath of the Lord 
their God, and mocking him with the idolatrous services 
of a false sabbath which he has strictly forbidden to be 
observed—the sabbath of his great rival god, the sun. In 
any view of the case, therefore, the Protestant division of 
the Christian Church stand convicted of deceiving the 
people, of desecrating the sabbath, of practicing idolatrous 
worship, and of many other equally graves offenses. To 
these despicable convicts, I will simply say, in the language 
of another: “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how 
can ye escape the condemnation of hell ?” 

And now, in conclusion, I wish to call your attention 
to the unjust discrimination which, in the enforcement of 
this monstrous imposition called the sabbath, is always 
made in favor of the rich and powerful, and against 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


655 


the poor and the feeble. I wish to show you that 
the whole affair is an unspeakably atrocious conspi¬ 
racy on the part of the priesthood, the princes, the money 
lenders, and other non-producers—the drones and the 
leeches of society—for the express purpose of robbing the 
people, and of thus keeping them in perpetual poverty 
and bondage; for the express purpose of rendering the 
rich and the powerful, who do not labor at all, still richer 
and still more powerful, and of rendering the poor and the 
feeble, who perform all the labor, still poorer, still more 
feeble, and, consequently, still more servile. When this 
atrocious conspiracy, together with many others, all tend¬ 
ing to the same end, was first concocted, all of these 
drones, all of these leeches, all of these various classes of 
conspirators, were included in one single class—the class 
that have cursed every nation and every age of the world 
—the priesthood, who then usurped all authority, civil and 
religious, as well as the avenues to wealth and to power. 
I will examine this conspiracy, however, only as it now 
operates upon ourselves. 

As I have already said, the burdens of this idolatrous 
institution, this counterfeit sabbath, this so-called Lord’s 
day, fall almost exclusively upon the poor, who, for sub¬ 
sistence, depend solely upon their daily labor. Upon its 
inventors, the priesthood themselves, no portion of the 
burdens of this monstrous imposition falls at all. They 
are permitted to pursue their ordinary occupation on this 
day the same as on any other. Indeed, it gives to their 
trade or profession an entire monopoly of this day. So 
far, therefore, from resting themselves, on this day, as they 
require all others to rest, from their ordinary occupations, 
they are wont to make it a special day of labor, and one 
upon which they realize greater profits from their trade 
than they realize on any other day. In these great profits 
which thus accrue to themselves from this monstrous 
monopoly, you clearly see one of the principal objects for 
which the sabbatical imposition was concocted. Indeed, 


656 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


we all know that, if this imposition were entirely abolished, 
the greater portion of the priesthood would, at once, be 
compelled to abandon their present worse than useless 
occupation, and to engage in other occupations, less agree¬ 
able to themselves, but more beneficial to society. So 
long, however, as this imposition is tolerated, so long as 
the people tamely submit to be driven, once a week, like 
so many sheep to the shearer, from their farms, their 
workshops, etc., into the churches, just so long will the 
priesthood seem to be serving the people, and just so long 
will they seem to have a claim upon the people’s money. 

Either by means of unjust and oppressive laws, or by 
means of persistent appeals made to his superstitious 
hopes and fears, every laboring man is robbed by this im¬ 
position of one-seventh of his entire time ; of fourteen 
and two-sevenths per cent, of his entire means of subsist¬ 
ence. And we all know that, as a rule, such a tax is 
sufficient to prevent any poor man from ever rising above 
his poverty. Indeed, we all know that very few wealthy 
men could long bear up under an extra tax of fourteen and 
two-sevenths per cent, of their entire income. Besides 
being burdened with this oppressive tax, the poor man is 
generally bullied and threatened with hell until he contrib¬ 
utes to the support of the priesthood out of the pittance 
that he may have been able to save from the proceeds of 
the other six-sevenths of his time. His family may really 
need the little that he might earn or produce on Sunday, 
and yet he is not permitted to supply that need. 

With the rich, the case is very different. Not being 
accustomed, on any day, to engage in servile or manual 
labor, they can nominally fulfil the requirements of the 
day in question without any change at all in their daily 
habits or in their ordinary occupations. Besides this, 
their incomes, not depending upon their labor, go right on 
accruing on Sunday the same as on any other day. Take 
Vanderbilt, for instance. His income on Sunday is about 
twenty-four thousand dollars, or about forty dollars for 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


657 


every breath he draws. And yet Sunday does not tax him 
at all. It makes no change at all in either his occupation 
or his income. Why should this be so ? Why should the 
poor man, by being permitted to labor on Sunday, be de¬ 
prived of his entire income of that day, of the entire 
dollar which he would otherwise earn, and which his 
family often so sorely needs, for which, too, he would per¬ 
form labor beneficial to society, while the rich man, who 
performs no such labor, and whose family knows no need 
at all, is permitted on the same day to pursue his ordinary 
.occupation, and to draw his entire unearned income of 
twenty-four thousand dollars ? Does not this case clearly 
prove that I am correct in charging that one of the prin¬ 
cipal designs of the sabbatical imposition always has been 
to render the poor poorer and the rich richer ? Is not the 
whole imposition founded upon the monstrous principle 
“ that unto everyone wdiicli hath shall be given; and from 
him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away 
from him ? ” Stop one-seventh of every rich man’s in¬ 
come, the same as you stop that of every poor man— 
compel the priests to close their shops on Sunday, the 
same as you compel blacksmiths, bootmakers, and other 
.artisans to close theirs—in a w~ord, make the operation of 
this Sunday imposition equal upon all classes, and how long 
would it be before these privileged classes, who, because 
they are gainers by it, are now so loud in defense of this 
imposition, would be just as loud in its condemnation? 
Does any intelligent person believe that perfectly equal 
■Sunday laws would be sustained for even one day? 

When hard pressed, as they always are when called 
upon to defend their Sunday imposition, the champions of 
the Bible are wont to assume an exceedingly wise look, 
.and to declare that men are so constituted, physically, 
that they need to rest on every seventh day, and that, if 
this rest w T ere denied to them, the human race would rap¬ 
idly decline. This would-be wise declaration, however, 
.amounts to no argument at all. On the contrary, it is an 


658 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


entire abandonment of every argument ever advanced in 
support of tlie sabbatical imposition as a religious institu¬ 
tion ; for, while the Bible has God assign three other rea¬ 
sons why the sabbath should be observed—while it has 
him, for a good reason, confine this observance to the sev¬ 
enth day alone—while it has him, by withholding manna 
on that day for forty years, miraculously demonstrate that 
no other day would be accepted by him as the sabbath— 
while it has him punish men with death, for working on 
that day, just the same whether they had, or had not, 
rested on one of the preceding six days, it does not have 
him anywhere even hint at this physical necessity which, 
if it really existed, could be relieved by resting on any 
other one day of the week just as well as it could be by 
resting upon the seventh day alone. Indeed, according to 
this declaration, no form of the sabbath is an institution 
at all. Like the evacuation of the bowels, the observance 
of the sabbath in any form is simply a physical necessity— 
an ordinary call of nature—and no such physical necessity 
—such call of nature—can ever be regarded as a religious 
institution. No attention to such a call of nature can ever 
be regarded as a religious ceremony or duty. It can never 
be regarded as a form of religious worship. It can never 
be regarded as a commemoration of the rest of the Creator 
on the seventh day of creation, of the release of the He¬ 
brews from bondage in Egypt, of the peculiar union into 
which God entered with the Hebrews, of the resurrection 
of Jesus, or of anything else. The evacuation of the 
bowels is just as much a religious ceremony, or duty—just 
as much a mode of religious worship—just as much a com¬ 
memoration of God’s rest, etc., as is the observance of the 
sabbath, if, indeed, like the evacuation of the bowels, that 
observance be simply an ordinary call of nature—a physical 
necessity. 

This declaration, however, is simply a hackneyed and 
absurd falsehood—an insult to every intelligent person, 
put forth by priestcraft for want of an argument. It is not 


THE SABBATH OF THE BIBLE. 


659 


true that men are so constituted, physically, that they 
need to rest one day in every seven. It is a well-known 
historical fact that many nations, among which this period 
of rest was either entirely unknown or totally disregarded, 
have been noted for the fine physical development and 
power of the individuals composingthem. Men are simply 
so constituted, physically, that they need to rest whenever 
they happen to be weary; and every man can best judge 
for himself when he needs to rest, and liow long. 

If the declaration in question were true—if the sabbath 
actually were a mere call of nature—then, like digestion, 
the secretion of bile, the evacuation of the bowels, etc., it 
should evidently be treated of by physiologists and in medi¬ 
cal works, and not by theologians and in religious works. 
Besides this, if the sabbath really were simply a periodic 
call of nature, then, like all other such calls, it would be 
entirely under the control of the laws of nature. It would 
be no more capable of being controlled by human laws 
than is the action of the stomach, the liver, the lungs, or 
the bowels. Every man would have a period peculiar to 
himself, and, at the end of that period, his natural call for 
rest would come on just the same without the intervention 
of human laws that it would with them. In this case, it 
would be just as reasonable to attempt, by means of human 
laws, to 'make all men’s bowels move at the same moment 
and to evacuate the same amount of waste matter, as it 
would be to attempt, by similar laws, to make all men’s, 
periodic call for rest fall upon the same day and require 
the same amount of rest. As you all well know, there is 
a natural periodic call or condition peculiar to women. 
But does that call or condition require the intervention of 
human laws ? Is it not brought on, and is it not observed 
just the same, without the intervention of such laws that it 
would be with them ? Could any human laws ever so con¬ 
trol that periodic call or condition as to make it, in alii 
women, fall upon the same day and last for the same length 
of time ? 


660 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Besides all these things, men require regularity and 
uniformity in labor and rest, the same as in food, in dress, 
and in all other things. They do not require a full amount 
of any of these things for just six days, and then none at 
all on the seventh day. It would be just as reasonable, 
right, and proper, therefore, for the church to interfere 
and compel them to go entirely without either food or 
clothing on Sunday as it is for her to interfere and compel 
them to go without the physical exercise which they need 
just as much on that day as on any other. If a man’s own 
judgment can be trusted in regard to his food and his 
dress, can it not also, with equal safety, be trusted in re¬ 
gard to his labor and his rest ? And is not any interfer¬ 
ence on the part of the priesthood or others, in the latter 
case, just as great an outrage upon his individual rights 
and dignity as would be a similar interference in the 
former case ? Let slaves hug this priest-made, this priest¬ 
paying sabbatical chain to their bosoms, if they will; but, 
from me, away with it! 


THE HOD OF THE BIBLE. 


661 


LECTURE EIGHTEENTH. 

THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 

In regard to the God of the Bible, the old God of the 
Hebrews, who has been adopted by the Christians, and 
who, both by the Jews and the Christians, is assumed to 
be the Creator and the Supreme Euler of the universe, I 
propose to prove the following ten facts : 1. That he was 

once nothing more than the tutelary divinity of the Hebrew 
Nation alone; 2. that he once had a material body like 
that of a man ; 3. that he was once limited in his presence, 
in his knowledge, in his power, and in his goodness; 4. 
that he was once subject to human wants, infirmities, ap¬ 
petites, and passions; 5. that, in all his actions, he was 
once wont to be governed entirely by purely human mo¬ 
tives ; 6. that he was the source of all evil; 7. that he 
often broke his most solemn promises, practiced deception, 
required and accepted human sacrifices, and did other 
wicked acts; 8. that he often encouraged, and sometimes 
positively commanded, lying, robbery, slavery, polygamy, 
concubinage, common prostitution or whoredom, and mur¬ 
der ; 9. that he was once accustomed to pardon, by con¬ 
tract, a certain amount of sins in return for a certain 
amount of roast beef, roast mutton, etc., of which he was 
very fond, and occasionally in return for human sacrifices; 
10. that, in consequence of all these things, he could not 
have been the Creator of the universe, and cannot now be 
its Supreme Euler. All of these things, I propose to 
prove by the testimony of the Bible itself and that of its 


662 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


champions. Since the same passages, by which I shall 
prove one of these facts, will frequently also prove several 
of the others, I shall not attempt to prove the facts sepa¬ 
rately. Having, in my three lectures upon the creation, 
sufficiently analyzed this God as the assumed Creator of 
the universe, I shall, in the present lecture, analyze him 
only as its assumed Supreme Ruler. 

“If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall 
serve : and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. 
- . . If his master have given him a wife, and she have 
borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children 
shall be her master’s and he shall go out by himself. And 
if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, 
.and my children; I will not go out free : then his mas¬ 
ter shall bring him unto the judges: he shall also bring 
him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master 
shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve 
him forever ” (Ex. xxi, 2-6). From this, we learn that 
God approved slavery—even the abominable slavery of 
brethren to their brethren. We also learn that a brutal 
slave, w r lio cared nothing for his wife and children, was re¬ 
warded for his brutality by being permitted to abandon 
them and to go out free at the end of six years ; while the 
good and loving husband and father, who could not bear 
the thought of thus abandoning his dear ones, was pun¬ 
ished for his goodness and affection, by having his ear 
bored through with an awl and by being made a slave 
forever. And the author of this abominable law was the 
God that you have adopted, that you now worship, and 
fhat you declare is utterly unchangeable. If, then, this 
your adopted God, who is bound to still approve such 
slavery, should conclude to have you, who are so unfortunate 
as to be very poor, sold, as slaves, for six years, to your more 
fortunate brethren, and if, at the end of that time, he should 
compel you to abandon forever your wives and your little 
ones, or to have your ears bored through with awls, and 
yourselves made slaves forever, what would you think of 


THE GOD OP THE BIBLE. 


663 


his conduct ? And yet would this treatment be any worse 
if inflicted upon yourselves than it was when, for a similar 
misfortune, it was inflicted upon equally good and loving 
Hebrew husbands and fathers ? Do you really believe that 
the infinitely great and glorious power that rules the uni¬ 
verse was ever guilty of acts so unspeakably abomin¬ 
able ? 

“ If a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall 
not go out as the men-servants do” (Ex. xxi, 7). “Yet 
now our flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children 
as their children : and lo, we bring into bondage our sons 
and our daughters to be servants, and some of our daugh¬ 
ters are brought into bondage already ; neither is it in our 
power to redeem them; for other men have our lands and 
our vineyards ” (Neh. v, 5). From these passages, we 
learn that God authorized fathers to sell their own chil¬ 
dren, especially their daughters, into slavery; and that, 
when thus made slaves, the daughters were not permitted 
to go out free, at the end of six years, as were the men 
servants. From these, and from the following passages, 
we also learn that if poor men, among God’s chosen people, 
did not pay their debts by voluntarily selling themselves 
or their children into slavery, God authorized their credi¬ 
tors, with whom he always took side, to seize them, 
or their children, or both, and make slaves of them. 
“ And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, 
and be sold unto thee; ...” (Lev. xxv, 39). “ Now 

there cried a certain woman of the wives of the sons of 
prophets unto Elisha, saying, Thy servant my husband is 
dead; and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the 
Lord; and the creditor is come to take unto him my two 
sons to be bondmen ” (2 Kings iv, 1). What would you 
think of this God, whom you have adopted, and whom you 
declare to be “ without parallax or shadow of turning,” 
should he now, as in former times, authorize men to sell 
their own children into slavery, and should he authorize 
jour creditors to make slaves of you and your children ? 


664 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Would you still sing liis praises? If not, why do you sing* 
them at all ? Dare you say that he is any too good to do 
such things—that he is any better now than he was when 
he did do them ? 

“Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou 
shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you ; 
of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, 
of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among 
you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are 
■with you. . . . And ye shall take them as an inheritance 
for your children after you, to inherit them for a pos¬ 
session, they shall be your bondmen forever” (Lev. xxv, 
44-46). From this, we learn that God not only permitted 
his chosen people to traffic for gain in human beings, in 
the sons and daughters of their neighbors, but also actu¬ 
ally commanded them to do so, and declared that the 
persons thus reduced to slavery should be “ bondmen for¬ 
ever.” He certainly approved slavery, therefore, in its 
worst form, and fully intended that it should be practiced. 
“forever.” He is certainly responsible for all the horsors 
and the abominations of slavery that have ever cursed 
those countries in which the teachings of the Bible have 
been accepted as of divine authority. The slave-holders 
of the Southern states were certainly correct when they 
claimed that, according to the plainest teachings of the 
Bible, slavery -was an institution of divine origin; an in¬ 
stitution, too, which, with God’s approbation, could never 
be abolished. They were certainly correct also when they 
charged those who were attempting the overthrow of 
slavery with fighting against God. 

“ I form light, and create darkness ; I make peace and 
create evil ” (Is. xlv, 7). From this, we learn that God is 
as much the Creator of evil as he is of light or of anything 
else. So in Amos iii, 6, “ . . . shall there be evil in a city, 
and the Lord hath not done it? ” God seemed surprised 
that the people should look upon any form of evil as hav¬ 
ing any other source than himself. “ Shall we receive good 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


665 


at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil ? ” (Job 
ii, 10). Upon whom did Job look as the source of evil ? 
“For the inhabitants of Maroth waited carefully for good : 
but evil came down from the Lord unto the gate of Jeru¬ 
salem ” (Mic. l, 12). If there had been no evil in God, could 
evil have thus come down from him ? “ And the Lord 

repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his 
people” (Ex. xxxiv, 14). Of necessity, that which God 
had “thought to do unto his people” must have been 
either a right or a wrong act. If it was a right act, then 
God repented of having thought to do that which was 
right. If it was a wrong act, then God had thought to do 
that which was wrong, and would have actually done that 
wrong, had not Moses shamed him out of his evil inten¬ 
tion. Is such a being a safe and competent person to be 
the Supreme Euler of the Universe ? 

“ Thus saitli the Lord, Behold, I will raise up evil 
against thee out of thine own house, and I will take thy 
wives before thine eyes, and give them unto thy neighbor: 
and he shall lie -with thy wives in the sight of this sun ” 
(2 Sam. xii, 11). And now, let me ask, do you believe that 
the infinitely great and glorious power that rules the uni¬ 
verse ever made and executed so unspeakably abominable 
a threat ? If not, how can you worship, as the Supreme 
Euler of the universe, a being who, if we are to believe 
the testimony of the Bible, actually did both make it and 
execute it ? This atrocious threat was professedly made 
against David, with whom God was having a kind of lover’s 
quarrel. Instead, however, of punishing the offender him¬ 
self, God permitted him to live right on undisturbed in all his 
regal splendor, and, for the present, satisfied his vengeance 
by killing one of the offender’s infant children. Having thus 
temporarily appeased his wrath, he fixed upon Absalom, 
one of David’s own sons, as his instrument with which to 
execute his vile intentions against David’s wives, who 
were not guilty of any offense at all. At that time, Ab¬ 
salom was a wonderfully handsome, noble, and manly 


666 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


youth of nineteen, the idol of his father, the pride of the 
whole nation. Having, according to the chronology of 
the Bible, waited eleven years, for this lad to attain full 
manhood, God took possession of him, and, by almighty 
power, irresistibly led him to commit the unspeakably re¬ 
volting act of publicly and forcibly lying with his father’s 
wives—with his own step-mothers. In all that he did, 
Absalom was faithfully doing God’s will, doing just what 
God made him do; and yet, after having thus forever 
blackened the previously fair name of this brave and 
noble young man, God had him and twenty thousand other 
men remorselessly butchered for no other offense than 
that of doing his own will; of doing that which, by his 
own almighty power, he made it utterly impossible for 
them not to do. 

In this case, and in hundreds of other similar cases, 
without at all consulting their own wishes in regard to the 
matter, God, for the very vilest of purposes, arbitrarily 
disposed of the women and of their virtue to whomsoever 
he pleased. And now, let me ask, what would the pure 
women of our own time—the faithful wives and fond 
mothers who now worship this same God, all unchanged 
as he is—think of him, if, to spite their husbands, he 
should have them thus forcibly dragged to the top of a house, 
and have them there, in open day, right before one another’s 
faces, thus ravished, in the sight of thousands of eager 
spectators ? How would my good orthodox brethren like 
to have this their adopted God treat their own wives, their 
own mothers , their own sisters, and their own daughters in 
this same horribly outrageous manner ? And was not his 
conduct just as abominable, on the occasion in question, 
when performed upon other equally good and pure women, 
as it would be if performed upon our own women ; and is 
he any better now than he was then ? Is not the cause of 
virtue greatly injured by teachings so blasphemous con¬ 
cerning God? Will the worshipers of such a God ever try 
to be any better than is the God himself ? 


THE GOD OP THE BIBLE. 


667 


“ And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against 
Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go, num¬ 
ber Israel and Judah” (2 Sam. xxiv, 1). David did as God 
moved him to do, and then, to punish him for his obedience, 
God killed 70,000 innocent people. What could be more 
horrible in its cruelty or detestable in its injustice ? What 
harm was there in David’s taking a census of the people, 
especially when God himself moved him to take it ? And 
admitting that the act was a wicked one, why did God 
suffer David, the only offender, to escape all punishment, 
and wreak his vengeance on 70,000 innocent persons ? Was 
the infinitely great and glorious power that rules the uni¬ 
verse ever guilty of conduct so monstrous ? 

“And Joshua, and all Israel with him, tookAchan, the 
son of Zerah, and the silver, and the garment, and the 
wedge of gold, and his sons and his daughters, and his oxen 
and his asses, and his sheep, and his tent, and all that he 
had ; and they brought them unto the valley of Achor. And 
Joshua said, Why hast thou troubled us? The Lord shall 
trouble thee this day. And all Israel stoned him with 
stones, and burned them with fire, after they had stoned 
them with stones. And they raised over him a great heap 
of stones unto this day. So the Lord turned from the 
fierceness of his anger” (Josh, vii, 24-26). It seems that 
this Achan had, for his own use, concealed a portion of the 
plunder which Joshua and his band of robbers, God’s pe¬ 
culiar people, had taken in one of their marauding expedi¬ 
tions. For this act, God did not, at first, have Achan 
himself punished. He simply had thirty-six innocent per¬ 
sons slain. The slaying of these persons made known the 
fact that he was angry about something, and led to. an in¬ 
vestigation which resulted in the discovery that Achan was 
the man for whose offense these men had been slain. 
Joshua then treacherously prevailed upon Achan to make 
confession of his crime, if crime it could be called. The 
nineteenth verse says : “ And Joshua said unto Achan, 

My son, give, I pray thee, glory to the Lord God of Israel, 


668 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


and make confession unto him ; and tell me now what thou 
hast done, hide it not from me.” Achan did make con¬ 
fession, and then, together with his innocent children, his 
sheep, his oxen, and his asses, he was cruelly stoned to 
death and then burned. 

Thus you see that, because one of the plunderers kept 
back a garment and a little gold, the God that you worship 
caused to be brutally butchered thirty-six innocent per¬ 
sons, an entire family of innocent children, and a large 
number of poor dumb brutes. And this is only one of 
many instances in which, for some trifling offense, com¬ 
mitted by some other party, God caused to be put to death 
a number of innocent men, women, and children as well as 
harmless dumb brutes. And yet the champions of the 
Bible have the effrontery to declare that this monster, all 
unchanged, is the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and that 
he is infinite in justice and in mercy. If you wish to do> 
so, you may sing the praises of such a God, but as for me, 
I can see nothing in him worthy of praise. I would rather 
praise the devil, who was never guilty of conduct half so- 
atrocious. 

“ And I gave thee thy master’s house, and thy master’s 
wives into thy bosom, and I gave thee the house of Israel and 
of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would moreover 
have given unto thee such and such things ” (2 Sam. xii, 8). 
At the time mentioned, David, to whom all these things 
were given, already had a harem well filled with wives and 
concubines. Instead, however, of reproving him for his 
polygamous practices, God, we see, encouraged and aided 
him to indulge in them upon a larger scale by thus making 
him a present of a whole houseful more of wives all at one 
time. These women were the widows of Saul, who was 
one of David’s many fathers-in-law. Of course, then, the 
women were all David’s own mothers-in-law. Their own 
wishes in regard to this wholesale transfer of themselves, 
as so much property, to their own son-in-law, were never 
consulted. This, however, was probably the best method 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


669 


of disposing of mothers-in-law. At any rate, it was God's 
method. If our ungodly laws would only permit them to 
do so, the champions of the Bible, as a rule, would doubt¬ 
less get rid of their own mothers-in-law by this divine 
method; by thus taking those charming women as wives 
to their own godly bosoms and to their own virtuous beds. 

When God was thus aiding and encouraging the prac¬ 
tice of polygamy and concubinage, he must, of necessity, 
have regarded these practices as either right or wrong; 
and since, according to the unanimous testimony of all his 
worshipers, he never changes, he must, of equal necessity, 
regard them now just as he regarded them then. If, there¬ 
fore, he then regarded them as right, he must, of necessity, 
still regard them as equally right. And if he regards them 
as right, are they not bound to be right? Dare the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible charge him with being deceived in re¬ 
gard to the nature of these practices? Dare they claim 
that they know any better than does he what is right and 
what is wrong ? If not, how dare they condemn, in the 
Mormons and others, these practices which he has always 
aided and encouraged ? If, on the other hand, at the time 
of which we are speaking, he regarded these practices as 
wrong, then he undeniably aided and encouraged his wor¬ 
shipers to indulge, to the fullest extent, in practices which 
he himself believed to be wrong, and which, consequently, 
must have actually been wrong. Without a decided 
change, therefore, for the better—and the champions of 
the Bible do not claim any such change—he is bound to be 
still equally inclined to aid and encourage his worshipers 
to indulge in these, and in other wicked practices. One 
or the other of these conclusions is inevitable, and, in 
either case, his whole mighty influence is undeniably on 
the side of the grossest immorality. 

“And the Lord said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a 
wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms. ... So 
he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which 
conceived, and bare him a son ” (Hos. i, 2,3). Further on, 


670 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


we learn that this woman “ of whoredoms ” bore Hosea two 
other children, and that he then grew weary of her, quar¬ 
reled with her, called her by foul names, threatened to strip 
her naked in the street, and drove her from his house. 
That he was living with her in a state of open whoredom, 
without any pretense of marriage, we learn from the second 
and the fourth verses of the next chapter : “ Plead with 

your mother, plead ; for she is not my wife , neither am I 
her husband. . . . And I will not have mercy upon her 
children; for they be the children of whoredoms .” The 
children to whom this holy old brute of a prophet was 
thus speaking, and upon whom he declared that he would 
not have any mercy, were his own children, begotten and 
born, as he declared, in the most shameful whoredom. 
Would not this holy man’s indignation at Gomer’s shame¬ 
ful conduct have appeared to better advantage, if he had 
not himself been, for many years, her equally lewd para¬ 
mour ? Why did he see nothing wrong in her conduct— 
nothing displeasing to himself, until after she had borne 
him several children, and her beauty had somewhat faded ? 
May it not be that he already had his libidinous eyes upon 
a younger and handsomer woman “ of whoredoms,” and 
that he quarreled with Gomer for the express purpose of 
getting rid of her, and of thus making room in his holy 
bed for this other lewd woman ? Be this as it may, he 
certainly did, almost immediately, take to his godly em¬ 
brace another woman of notoriously lewd character. 
“ Then said the Lord unto me, Go yet, love a woman be¬ 
loved of her friend, yet an adulteress. . . So I bought her 
to me [that is, paid her harlot’s fees] for fifteen pieces of 
silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of 
barley : and I said unto her, Thou shalt abide for me many 
days ; thou shalt not play the harlot [until I have received, 
in sexual enjojunent, tlie full value of the “fifteen pieces 
of silver, and an homer of barley, and an half homer of 
barley,” which I have advanced], and thou shalt not be for 
another man : so [until my “ many days ” of time is out 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


671 


with thee] will I also be for thee ” (Hos. iii, 1-3). What 
a love of a Lord that was ! How wonderfully kind to 
Hosea he was in thus furnishing him a lewd woman when¬ 
ever he perceived that this holy man wanted one! If he 
is so kind to my opponents—and who knows but that he 
often may be so, upon the sly ?—we can easily understand 
why they praise him so much. With what refreshing sim¬ 
plicity this holy man of God tells us how much he paid as 
fees to this prostitute, and that, by thus prudently paying 
in advance, he had her all to himself for “ many days!” 

In 2 Tim. iii, 16, Paul says : “ All scripture is given by 

inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for re¬ 
proof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” 
These bawdy-house accounts of Hosea’s libidinous adven¬ 
tures, which I stoop to notice only that I maj* expose 
them, constitute a portion of the God-inspired scriptures 
to which Paul refers. But what reproof, what correction, 
what instruction in righteousness, do we receive from these 
accounts ? If anybody is reproved or corrected by them, 
who can it be, unless it be those persons who have the im¬ 
pious audacity to condemn the God-approved , the God- 
commanded practice of prostitution? If anybody is in¬ 
structed in righteousness by them, who can it be, unless, it 
be those holy men—and there are many such—who, on the 
sly, deal in that form of righteousness which, openly, they 
stigmatize as prostitution, whoredom, etc. ? These holy men 
may, indeed, and doubtless often do, learn, from Hosea’s 
prudent example, to pay in advance, and to thus secure all 
to themselves the undisturbed possession of the prostitutes 
for “many days.” Can the champions of the- Bible men¬ 
tion anything else that can possibly be learned from these 
inspired scriptures? 

If God regarded the cohabiting thus with common 
hired prostitutes as right in Hosea’s time, how must he, 
utterly unchangeable as he is in his views and in all other 
things, regard similar conduct on the part of his worship¬ 
ers of the present time ? Can he regard it as otherwise 


672 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


than right? And while they know that he regards it as 
right, will his worshipers be likely to regard it as wrong, 
and will they be likely to avoid the practice of it ? In this 
case, is not his whole influence entirely on the side of 
the most baneful form of immorality? If, on the other 
hand, he regarded such conduct as wrong, in Hosea’s time, 
did not he himself command the practice of that which he 
believed to be wrong ? And is not his whole influence, in 
this case, as in the other, entirely, on the side of immo¬ 
rality ? Dare the champions of the Bible say that, since 
Hosea’s time, his character has undergone any change for 
the better ? If not, are they not bound to admit that he 
is still none too good to command his special favorites to 
indulge in similar wrong conduct, and that he probably 
does still occasionally so command them ? Believing that 
their God is pleased with such immoralities, will not his 
worshipers inevitably incline to practice them just to 
please him ? In any view of the case, can such blasphe¬ 
mous teachings concerning God have any other than a direct 
tendency to destroy, in the characters of those who ac¬ 
cept them, all the principles of morality and virtue? 
Can we wonder that, with the Bible for their code of 
morals, all Christendom is reeking with immorality and 
vice ? 

“ But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, thou 
slialt not eat of it; for in the day that thou eatest thereof 
thou shalt surely die ” (Gen. ii, 17). Here God made a 
positive threat or promise which he certainly did never 
fulfil. In defiance of this unreasonable threat, Adam and 
Eve, to whom the threat was made, had the good sense 
and the pluck to eat all they wanted of the fruit thus so 
positively and so foolishly prohibited. This was the very 
fruit which God very well knew that they most greatly 
needed. When making it, and when making them, he 
very well knew, too, that they would eat it. Indeed, he 
put it right in their way in order that they might not fail 
to eat it. Had they failed to eat it, all his plans for the 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


673 


iuture would have failed. There never would have been 
any fall of man, any redemption, any Eedeemer, any 
apostles, any New Testament, any saints, any Christian 
Church, any hell, any purgatory, any remission of sins, 
or any profitable trade for priests. And yet, when 
that primitive pair thus defiantly ate the forbidden fruit 
in question, when they had thereby become “ as gods, 
knowing good and evil,” God did not kill them as he had 
so positively declared that he would. So far from dying, 
according to that declaration, on the very day on which 
they ate the fruit, they lived right on for nearly a thou¬ 
sand years, and then died, not from the effects of eating 
fruit, but of extreme old age. And when God made the 
promise or threat in question, he very well knew that he 
would never fulfil it. He very well knew that he did not 
intend ever to fulfil it. In making it, therefore, was he 
not guilty of telling a deliberate and wilful falsehood ? 

“Set thine house in order; for thou shalt die, and not 
live ” (2 Kings xx, 1). This unconditional declaration 
was made to Hezekiah, who was very sick, and who had 
inquired of God what was to be the result of that sick¬ 
ness. Hezekiah, however, did not die at that time, as God 
thus so positively declared that he should. On the con¬ 
trary, he recovered, and lived on for many more years. 
Here, then God was again guilty of making a positive 
assertion which proved to be false, and which, when he 
made it, he must have known to be false. So, in Jon. iii, 
4, he spoke falsely when, in the most positive manner, he 
declared: “ Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be over-* 
thrown.” This promise or threat was never executed ; 
and, when making it, God very well knew that it would 
never be executed. Was he not, then, evidently guilty of 
a deliberate falsehood.? What say the champions of the 
Bible? 

In the fourteenth chapter of Numbers, God declares 
his intention to violate a sworn promise which he had 
made to the Hebrews. In the thirtieth verse, he says: 


674 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


“Doubtless ye shall not come into the land concerning 
which I sware to make you dwell therein.” God here ad¬ 
mits that he had made a sworn promise to the people whom 
he was addressing to make them dwell in a certain land—a 
promise on the strength of which he had induced them to 
leave their comfortable homes in Egypt. Now, however, 
after having drawn them out into a terrible desert, in which 
they are utterly helpless, he declares, with a kind of 
fiendish exultation, that he intends to deliberately violate 
this solemn promise, and to cause them all to miserably 
perish in the desert. At the close of the thirty-fourth 
verse, he uses these fearfully significant words : “ . . . 
and ye shall knoiv my breach of promise .” And this horrible 
threat he actually executed. He actually did violate his 
sworn promise, and actually did destroy many hundreds of 
thousands of the poor deluded people who had trusted and 
followed him. And this he did simply because the people 
had believed the report of his own messengers —of the men 
whom he himself had sent out to spy out the land upon 
which, as a robber, he intended to seize, and who had 
brought back an unfavorable report concerning it. Since, 
at the time of making the promise in question, he must 
have foreknown that he would never fulfil it, he must, of 
necessity, have made it while intending to break it. While 
discoursing upon God’s promises, why do our preachers 
never notice this promise ? And why do they teach that 
he cannot lie , when the Bible so plainly teaches that he can? 

“ I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne, and all the 
Host of heaven standing on his right hand, and on his left. 
And the Lord said, Who shall entice Ahab, king of Israel, 
that he may go up and fall at Ramotli-gilead ? And one 
spake saying after this manner, and another saying after that 
manner. Then there came out a spirit, and stood before 
the Lord, and said, I will entice him. And the Lord said 
unto him, Wherewith ? And he said, I will go out, and be 
a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the 
Lord said, Thou shalt entice him, and thou shalt also pre- 



THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


675 


vail: go out and do even so. Now therefore, behold, the 
Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of these thy 
prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil against thee ” 
(2 Cliron. xviii, 18-22). 

It seems that God had a quarrel with Ahab, king of 
Israel, and wished to destroy him, but was unable to do 
so, unless he could entice him out of his stronghold at. 
Samaria. God, therefore, resorted to the despicable means 
described in the passages above quoted. He sent out a 
professional liar, whom he had with him in heaven, and, 
by means of this person’s skilfully-told lies , he actually 
did draw Ahab out from his stronghold, and actually did 
destroy him. The champions of the Bible, I suppose* 
would, of course, call this Godly lying, and would praise 
God all the more for having practiced it, or for having had 
it practiced by one of his worshipers in heaven. Indeed, 
many of these champions seem to be laboring faithfully to 
qualify themselves to serve him, when they reach heaven, 
in the same capacity in which this spirit so ably served 
him. Ahab’s prophets were not to blame for what they 
said. Being inspired by God, or, at least, by an author¬ 
ized agent of his, they evidently thought that they were 
telling the truth. It was not they that did the lying. It 
was God, or his agent, that did the lying through them. 
They were nothing more than mere instruments, and were 
as honest as were the prophets who were opposed to Ahab, 
These prophets were themselves thoroughly deceived by 
this lie-loving God, in whom, like yourselves, they implic¬ 
itly trusted. From all this it is clear that your adopted 
God promptly resorted to lying whenever it suited his pur¬ 
poses to do so. And has he ever abandoned this monstrous 
practice ? If he has, ivhen did he abandon it, and why ? 

From these same passages, we also learn several other 
important facts. From the fact that he was seen T we learn 
that God was a visible object. From the fact that he was. 
“ sitting upon his throne,” we learn that he had a body ; He 
could not possibly have sat upon a throne, or upon, any- 


676 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tiling else, without a body with which to assume a sitting 
position. From the fact that he occupied a throne, we 
learn, further, that he was a monarch , and that, conse¬ 
quently, he was opposed to free or republican institutions. 
From the fact that there were hosts “ standing on his right 
hand , and on his left,” we learn that he had hands , and that 
he was limited in his own extent. From the fact that he 
had to inquire what the heavenly professional liar in ques¬ 
tion proposed to do, we learn that he was limited in his 
own knowledge. From the fact that, in order to overcome 
a poor feeble mortal, he was compelled to resort to lying, 
we learn that he was limited in his own poioer. From the 
fact that he did resort to means so base as wholesale 
lying, to accomplish his monstrous purpose of murdering 
a number of his own children, we learn that he was limited 
in his own goodness. From the fact that he had a hard- 
faced professional liar with him in heaven , we learn that 
such liars go to heaven when they die. What a cheering 
thought this must be to many of my opponents! From 
the fact that he preferred the plan proposed by this hard- 
faced professional liar, to any of the plans proposed by any 
of his more honest worshipers, if he had any such in 
heaven, we learn that liars were very influential persons in 
heaven, and that God preferred to accomplish his difficult 
undertakings by means of lying rather than by any other 
means. Indeed, from the fact that he did not call for any 
plan except one by which Ahab could be enticed or deceived 
out of his strong position, we learn that, from the very 
first, God proposed to deal in deception alone. Finally, 
from the fact that, in this whole affair, he acted just as a 
mean, cowardly, and treacherous man would be likely to act, 
under similar circumstances, we learn that, in his char¬ 
acter, God resembled a mean, cowardly, and treacherous man. 
I am aware that these are all very hard conclusions, and 
yet I defy my opponents, by fair and logical arguments, 
based upon the passages of scripture in question, to arrive 
at any other conclusions. 



THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


677 


“ Then said I, Ah, Lord God! surely thou hast greatly 
deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have 
peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the soul ” (Jer. 
iv, 10). Had the Lord thus “ deceived this people,” or did 
he simply inspire Jeremiah to lie when he declared that 
the people had been thus deceived ? “ O Lord, thou hast 
deceived me, and I was deceived ” (Jer. xx, 7). Had the 
Lord thus deceived Jeremiah, or did he simply again in¬ 
spire that lachrymose old prophet to declare a lie ? He 
certainly must have done the one or the other. Jeremiah, 
who seems to have been a really honest man, evidently 
looked upon this Lord God with a great deal of suspicion, 
and with very little reverence. At «mother time, in lan¬ 
guage far more forcible and familiar than reverential and 
polite, he called this mendaciously-inclined Lord God to 
account as follows : “ Wilt thou be altogether unto me as 

a liar ?” (Jer. xv, 18.) At still another time, he exhorted 
this Lord God to refrain from disgraceful conduct, to keep 
his sworn promises, like a gentleman, and to try and be a 
respectable God. “ Do not abhor us, for thy name’s sake, 
do not disgrace the throne of thy glory: remember, break not 
thy covenant with us ” (Jer. xiv, 21). Jeremiah evidently 
believed that God was in a fair way to become “ altogether 
. . . as a liar .” He also evidently believed that, if not 
dissuaded from doing so, by the earnest exhortations of his 
advisers, he was almost sure to “ disgrace the throne ” of his 
glory , to break his covenant with the people, and to do other 
acts unworthy of a God, or even of a gentleman. 

“ And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a 
thing, I the Lord have deceived that prophet” (Ezek. xiv, 
9). Of necessity, this language must be either true or 
false. If true, then God actually did deceive the proph¬ 
ets. If false, then, since “ all scripture is given by inspira¬ 
tion of God,” he certainly inspired Ezekiel, in this case, 
to write a lie. In either case, what kind of a being is he, 
and what kind of a book is the Bible ? 

From the first chapter of Exodus, we learn that God 


<678 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


rewarded two midwives, Shiprah and Puah, for lying to 
Pliaraoli concerning the birth of Hebrew children. Prom 
several succeeding chapters, we learn that God also in¬ 
structed Moses to lie to Pharaoh, by telling him that the 
Hebrews simply wished to go out a three days’ journey, to 
hold a kind of religious festival or camp-meeting, whereas 
they really meant to run entirely away and never come 
back at all. We also learn that God instructed Moses to 
lie to the Egyptians in regard to their clothing, their 
jewelry, and their other valuables, which God wished his 
chosen people, the Hebrews, to possess. Moses faithfully 
followed these instructions of his God, and lyingly told 
the Egyptians that the Hebrews simply wished to borrow 
these goods, for a few days only, whereas they had really 
already made arrangements to abscond from the country 
with these things, and never return them at all. If, on this 
occasion, God was unwitting to supply his peculiar people 
with clothing, jewelry, etc., by honest means, was he not 
wofully wanting in goodness ? If he was unable to supply 
them with these things by honest means, was he not wo¬ 
fully wanting in power ? The fact that he did not supply 
them with these things by honest means is proof positive 
that he was wofully wanting in the one or the other of 
these essential attributes of true deity. Which, then, did 
he lack, goodness or power ? And could he thus lack either 
of these attributes and not be, as a God, a most woful 
failure ? 

From the second chapter of Joshua, we learn that God 
rewarded a certain woman by the name of Kahab for lying 
to her neighbors, the inhabitants of Jericho, concerning the 
Hebrew spies whom she was concealing in her house. This 
woman was a harlot or common prostitute, and this fact 
probably explains why it was that, during their stay in 
Jericho, God’s messengers made her house their stopping- 
place. “ Birds of a feather,” etc. 

When God wished Samuel to go to Bethlehem to anoint 
David king of Israel to succeed Saul, who by an act of hu- 



THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


679 


inanity shown to a captured king had offended God, Samuel 
was afraid to go ; afraid that Saul would put him to death. 
God, therefore, instructed Samuel to go with a base lie in 
his mouth; to take with him a heifer, and to falsely pre¬ 
tend that he had come for no other purpose than to offer 
a sacrifice unto the Lord. These facts, we learn from 
1 Sam. xvi, 1-5. 

In the eighth and the ninth chapters of Romans, we 
find the following passages: “ For whom he did fore¬ 

know, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the im¬ 
age of his Son, that he might be the first-born among 
many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, 
them he also called : and whom he called, them he also 
justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. 

. . . For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this 
same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show 
my power in thee, and that my name might be declared 
throughout all the earth. [What a craver he was of no¬ 
toriety !] Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have 
mercy, and whom he will he liardeneth. . . . Hath not the 
potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one 
vessel unto honor, and another unto dishonor ? What if 
God, willing to show his wrath, and to make his power 
known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of 
wrath fitted to destruction : and that he might make known 
the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he 
had afore prepared unto glory, even us, whom he hath 
called, not of the Jews only, but also of the gentiles ?” In 
Eph. i, 4, Paul also says : “According as he hath chosen 
us in him, before the foundation of the world, that we 
should be holy and without blame before him in love.” 
In 2. Thess. ii, 13, Paul still further says : “ But we are 
bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren be¬ 
loved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning 
chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the 
spirit, and belief of the truth.” 

From these, and a vast number of other similar pas- 


680 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


sages, we learn that, before the foundation of the world,. 
God unchangeably predestinated a certain portion of the 
human race to eternal salvation, and all the balance to 
eternal damnation. We also learn that he exerts such an 
influence upon all men that not an individual of them can 
possibly escape his predestinated destiny, and that every 
individual of them shall seem to deserve, and to be fitted 
for, the particular destiny to which he is thus predes¬ 
tinated. We learn that, to those whom he has predestinated 
to salvation, he gives power to believe certain absurd doc¬ 
trines, such as that a certain God is his own father and 
his own son, that one God is three Gods, and that three 
Gods are only one God, etc.; and that, although he has already 
unchangeably predestinated them to certain salvation, he 
then pretends that he saves them because of their belief in 
these absurd doctrines. He thus makes them seem to 
merit the salvation to which he has predestinated them, 
and to be fitted for it. We also learn that, from those 
whom he has predestinated to damnation, he either with¬ 
holds all power to believe thofee absurd doctrines, or else 
manufactures a lie and makes them believe it, and that, 
although their several dooms have all been unchangeably 
fixed since before the foundation of the world, he then 
pretends that he damns them, some because they have not 
believed the absurd doctrines in question, and the rest 
because they have believed the lie which he himself manu¬ 
factured for them and made them believe. All of this is 
abominably partial and unfair. Since, like mere machines, 
those who are predestinated to salvation are simply made 
to believe, their faith cannot possibly be any merit on their 
own part. So, on the other hand, the unbelief, in an ab¬ 
surdly so-called truth, on the part of some of those who 
have been eternally doomed to damnation, and the belief 
on the part of the balance in a God-prepared lie, cannot 
possible involve any demerit on the part of the respective 
subjects of them, since, like mere machines, all of these 
persons are, by God’s own almighty power, made to be just 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


681 


what they are. Just as reasonably might God damn us 
for not flying, when he has given us no power to fly, as to 
damn us for not believing certain absurd and incredible 
doctrines, when he has given us no power to believe them. 
We would all gladly fly, if we could, and, if we could, we 
would all just as gladly believe all that it is necessary to be¬ 
lieve in order to attain salvation. So of those who are made 
to believe a lie. It would be just as reasonable for God to 
make them blind, and then to damn them for being so, as 
it is for him to make them believe a lie, and then to damn 
them for believing it. Why not damn us at once with¬ 
out all this silly effort to make us seem to merit such a 
doom? Will God ever give saving faith to any one whom, 
before the foundation of the world, he predestinated to 
eternal damnation ? If not, why mock these unfortunate 
creatures by calling upon them to believe ? 

But does God, you ask, make certain persons believe a 
lie? Paul declares that he certainly does, and that he 
does it, too, for the express purpose of thereby securing 
a seeming excuse for inflicting upon them the damna¬ 
tion to which he has already long since unchangeably 
predestinated them; the damnation which they would 
have had to endure all the same if this pretended 
excuse had never been invented. “And for this cause 
God shall send them strong delusion , that they should be¬ 
lieve a lie [and he will do this expressly in order], that 
they might all be damned ” . . . [and that they might all 
seem to deserve to “be damned”] (2 Thess. ii, 11-12). 
This makes the case a very clear one, and, at the same 
time, makes God a thousand times worse than the devil. 

In order that these truly unfortunate people may, with¬ 
out fail, “believe a lie” they must of necessity, have a 
suitable lie furnished them to believe. Without such a lie 
for them to believe , the “ strong delusion ” in question would 
evidently be an utter failure. But who is to furnish them 
the lie ? Who possibly could furnish it, except God him¬ 
self? He alone foreknew that there was ever to be any 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


682 

sucli lie , and that it was ever to be believed; and he could 
not possibly have foreknown these things unless he had 
himself predetermined to infallibly 'prepare that lie. 

Since the elect were infallibly chosen to salvation, be¬ 
fore the foundation of the world, their salvation evidently 
does not depend upon anything meritorious in themselves. 
They attain salvation simply because, millions of ages be¬ 
fore they were born, God made it utterly impossible for 
them not to attain it. So of the non-elect. Since the 
doom of damnation was unchangeably fixed upon them, 
millions of ages before they were born, their damnation 
evidently does not depend upon anything demeritorious in 
themselves. They are damned simply because God made 
them for the express purpose of damning them ; simply 
because he has made it utterly impossible for them not to 
be damned. 

I have heard certain champions of the Bible try to jus¬ 
tify God’s act of damning these unfortunate persons in ad¬ 
vance of their creation, by claiming that he damns them 
on account of the sins which he foresees that they are to 
commit after they are created. This, however, is not the 
teaching of the Bible. It plainly teaches that God forms 
these persons expressly for damnation, just as a potter 
forms certain vessels expressly for dishonorable uses. 
The Bible teaches, too, that God has a perfect right to 
thus make men for the sole purpose of damning them. Be¬ 
sides this, how can God possibly foresee that certain sins 
are to be committed by certain persons, not yet born, un¬ 
less he himself unchangeably predetermines that those 
very sins inevitably shall be committed by those very per¬ 
sons. If those persons possibly could avoid committing 
those sins which he foresees that they are to commit, they 
probably would avoid committing them. In this case, 
however, the events which God professes to foresee would 
never occur at all, and his pretended foresight would re¬ 
duce to extremely poor guessing. Does he not, then, of 
necessity, just as much predetermine the acts and the re- 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


683 


spective characters of these various persons as he prede¬ 
termines their existence and their final destiny ? Is it not 
an undeniable fact that whoever ultimately lands in hell 
does so simply because God has made him expressly for 
that particular destiny, and has made it utterly impossible 
for him to attain any other ? This makes God a thousand 
times 'worse than the devil was ever represented to be, 
since it makes God, who could do otherwise, spend a great 
portion of his time in making men for the express purpose 
of seeing them writhe, for ever and ever, in the unutterable 
torments of fire and brimstone, while the devil, who is 
himself also helplessly suffering these same terrible tor¬ 
ments, simply receives those whom God makes for him, 
and forwards to his fearfully fiery dominions. This is, 
undeniably, the most horribly blasphemous doctrine ever 
taught among men. There is, however, no doctrine more 
clearly taught in the Bible, and, so long as the Bible con¬ 
tinues to be accepted as good authority on such subjects, 
my Presbyterian friends, and others who advocate this 
horribly blasphemous doctrine, need have no fear that it 
can ever be overturned. 

But who are those persons whom God is thus, by 
‘‘strong delusion,” irresistibly leading to “believe a lie 
that they all might be damned ? ” What assurance have 
my orthodox opponents that they are not the very persons 
who are thus deluded, and thus booked for eternal damna¬ 
tion? Would it not be just as fair, and just as proper, for 
God to thus delude them into believing a lie, “ that they 
all might be damned,” as it would be for him to thus de¬ 
lude anybody else into believing the same thing for the same 
purpose? Indeed, by reading the whole chapter from 
which I have quoted, you will clearly perceive that the 
language in question cannot be applied, as many would 
like to apply it, to infidels or unbelievers. These are all 
to be damned, it is true, but, as we elsewhere learn, their 
damnation is to administered, ostensibly,* because they 
have not believed anything at all, and not, like that of the 


684 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


persons whose case is now under consideration, because 
they have believed a lie. 

Paul describes those to whom he applies the language 
in question as sitting in the temple of God, claiming to be 
the people of God, and arrogating to themselves many of 
the powers and the prerogatives of God. He describes 
them further as a portion of the Christian Church who are 
to fall away from that Church and to corrupt themselves 
by the adoption of false doctrines and the indulgence in 
wicked practices; but who, nevertheless, are to claim to be 
the true Church, and are to be loud and arrogant professors 
of religion. 

These unfortunate victims, then, of God’s “ strong de¬ 
lusion,” must, of necessity, constitute some church organi¬ 
zation. All theologians admit this fact, and differ in 
opinion only when they attempt to fix upon the particular 
sect or division of the Church that are being thus so scan¬ 
dalously deluded and damned. Though they all think it a 
glorious thing for any other sect to be thus treacherously 
tricked and damned, yet, for obvious reasons, none of them 
like to undergo those interesting operations themselves. 

All theologians agree that it will not do to fix upon 
some small and obscure sect, since Paul describes the fall¬ 
ing away as a very great one. They all agree that the descrip¬ 
tion cannot be filled by anything less than the entire Catho¬ 
lic, or the entire Protestant division of the Christian Church. 
As a matter of course, therefore, the Catholics boldly claim, 
and, indeed, quite clearly prove, that the Protestants cor¬ 
respond exactly to the description given by Paul of those 
who were to fall away from the Church, and who were 
then to be so atrociously tricked and damned by the God 
whom they professed to serve. On the other hand, equally 
as a matter of course, the Protestants return this truly 
characteristic Christian compliment by just as boldly 
claiming, and just as clearly proving, the same things in 
regard to the Catholics. For my own part, I suspect that 
both parties are correct—that both Catholics and Protest- 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


685 


ants are being basely deluded into believing a lie—“ that 
they all might be damned.” Should my view of the matter 
prove to be correct, then we will all be damned together ; 
some of us for what we do believe, and the balance for 
what we do not believe. In any view of the case, those 
who escape damnation are bound to be very few and far 
between. Since God is professedly a deluder, no man can 
have any assurance that his own religious faith is not a 
“ strong delusion,” sent upon him by God as a pretext for 
damning him. In view of all these things, then, let us all 
prepare to be damned. 

In the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, God declares that, 
for a pretext to render his people desolate, he gave them 
“ statutes that were not good, and judgments whereby they 
should not live; ” and that he “ polluted them,” and caused 
them to burn their own children as sacrifices upon the 
altar. To assert that the Supreme Kuler of the Universe— 
the sum of all the forces eternally inherent in matter— 
ever did any such things as these, is to assert something 
so supremely absurd, and so monstrously blasphemous, 
that it requires no further notice. 

“ And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking 
in the garden in the cool of the day : and Adam and his 
wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God 
among the trees of the garden. And the Lord God called 
unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?” (Gen. iii, 
8, 9.) This is a plain historical statement, in which fig¬ 
urative language would evidently be entirely inadmissible. 
The entire statement is bound to be either literally true, 
or literally false. If it be literally true—and the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible will hardly claim that it is literally 
false—then, since God had a voice, audible to the natural 
or physical sense of hearing, he must, of necessity, have 
possessed physical organs of speech. Since he was walk¬ 
ing, he must have had feet and legs to walk with, and a 
body to keep these organs in their place. Since, for his 
walk, he chose “ the cool of the day,” it is evident that he 


686 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


wished to avoid the heat of the day as too oppressive. In 
this matter, he clearly exhibited a human, or, at least, a 
physical weakness. Finally, since he was walking about 
inside of the garden, he must, of necessity, have been less 
in extent than the garden, and, of equal necessity, all that 
portion of the uniyerse which lay outside of the garden 
must have been totally destitute of his presence. Indeed, 
from the fact that “Adam and his wife hid themselves from 
the presence of the Lord God, among the trees of the gar¬ 
den,” it is evident that he was present in only a portion 
even of the garden. 

Since Adam alone was expected to dress this entire 
garden and keep it in order, it could not have been a very 
large one. Inside of this small garden, however, Adam 
and his naughty little wife managed to successfully hide 
themselves from the Lord’s presence. In order to do this, 
they had, of necessity, to be where he was not present; 
and, of equal necessity, their place of concealment had to 
be unknown to him. Had he been present where they 
were hidden, they would not have been hidden from his 
presence; and, had he known where they then were, they 
would not have been hidden from him at all. It is not 
said that they tried to hide from him, but that they act¬ 
ually did so hide ; and that, in order to find them, he was 
under the necessity of calling to them. Here, then, both 
God’s presence and his knowledge were confined within 
very narrow limits. 

In Ex. xxxi, 17, we read: “ . . . for in six days the 

Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day he 
rested and was refreshed .” Had he not been weary , he 
could not possibly have thus rested and been refreshed . 
Here, then, w r e again have positive proof that God was 
subject to a human or an animal infirmity, weariness, and 
that, like men and other animals, he required rest and re¬ 
freshment. And dare my opponents claim that a person 
like this, possessed of a body, and thus subject to animal 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 687 

wants and infirmities, can be the infinite force that holds 
the planets in their orbits, the universe in its order? 

“ And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took 
of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered 
burnt-offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled a sweet 
savor; and the Lord said in his heart, I will not again 
curse the ground any more for man’s sake ” (Gen. viii, 
20, 21). From the fact that God said certain things “ in 
his heart” we learn that he certainly had a heart; and from 
the fact that he “ smelled a sweet savor,” the material odors 
of roast meats, we learn that he had a nose to smell with, 
and that his olfactories were acted upon by the same 
agencies that act upon the olfactories of men and of the 
lower animals. Indeed, the Bible plainly teaches that the 
design, and the only design, of the burnt-offerings, for¬ 
merly offered to God, was, by sending up to his place of 
abode “ a sweet savor,” to gratify his sense of smell, and to 
thus put him into a sufficiently good humor to pardon the 
sins of the people, and to complacently do their bidding 
generally. With their roast meats, they then bribed or 
bamboozled him into serving them, just as we now, with 
our extravagant flatteries, bribe or bamboolze him into 
serving ourselves. 

“ If so be they will hearken, and turn every man from 
his evil way, that I may repent me of the evil which I 
purpose to do unto them, because of the evil of their 
doings ” (Jon. iii, 10). Here we have God represented as 
being in doubt as to whether the people of whom he was 
speaking would, or would not, repent; and this uncer¬ 
tainty on his part, in regard to that matter, clearly proves 
that he was not, as the champions of the Bible claim tiiat 
he now is, absolutely omniscient. On the contrary, it 
clearly proves that, in regard to knowledge, he was not at 
all superior to a man of ordinary intelligence. He pro¬ 
posed to repent, provided those people would repent first; 
and he proposed to do evil, because they had already done 
evil. From this, we learn that his actions were controlled, 


688 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


not by infinite wisdom, but by the actions of wicked men. 
In repenting, he displayed a purely human weakness ; and, 
in proposing to do evil simply because man had done evil, 
he displayed a lamentable Avant of goodness, and an ex¬ 
ceedingly base human motive. Do you really believe that 
the infinite sum of all the forces that constitute the laws 
of nature, that constitute the Supreme Ruler of the uni¬ 
verse, ever thus displayed so purely human a weakness, 
so purely human, so exceedingly base, a motive. 

From the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy, we 
learn that, in a sudden fit of jealousy, God worked himself 
up into an uncontrollable fury, and then declared that, 
without any distinction of age, sex, or condition, he would 
mercilessly destroy all his people whom he had so often 
and so solemnly sworn to protect. When, however, his 
special favorite and adviser, Moses, had reasoned with 
him upon this subject, and had shoAvn him the disgraceful 
nature of his proposed course of conduct, the unpopularity 
which, by that course, he would bring upon himself, he 
concluded to break his word, and to back down from this 
proposed wholesale slaughter of his people. He did not 
thus back down, however, because of the enormity of his 
proposed crime. Of that enormity, he seemed to be 
totally unconscious, or utterly callous. He backed down 
simply horn fear; from fear that, if he should commit the 
atrocious crime proposed, his enemies would make fun of 
him, and claim to themselves the honor (?) of his atrocious 
act. Hear him : “ I said I would scatter them into cor¬ 
ners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease 
from among men. Were it not that I feared the wrath of 
the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave themselves 
strangely, and lest they should say, Our hand is high and 
the Lord hath not done this ” (Deut. xxxii, 26-27). From 
this, it is evident that, if he could have been sure that he 
should himself receive the honor (?) of the proposed de¬ 
struction of his people, he would certainly have destroyed 
them. I do not know which was the more abominable, 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


689 


the atrocious crime which he proposed to commit, or the 
-despicable cowardice which alone prevented him from 
-committing it. On various other occasions, he fell into 
similar fits of jealous fury, and, in the most positive 
manner, declared that he would utterly destroy all his 
chosen rascals, and choose an entirely new set. On each 
of these occasions, however, Moses, who was undeniably 
the greatest rascal of them all, and who seems to have 
been at all times more than a match for him in argument, 
who seems, too, by a truly strange coincidence, to have 
been the only person ever present on any of these occa¬ 
sions, succeeded in shaming him out of his proposed 
vengeance. This, Moses did, by representing to him what 
his enemies would say of conduct so inexpressibly atro¬ 
cious. And dare the champions of the Bible claim that 
this furiously jealous, this weak-reasoning, this promise¬ 
breaking coward was then, and still is, the Supreme Ruler 
-of the universe ? 

In the twentieth chapter of Ezekiel, God refers to these 
events, and again declares that it was only from the fear 
-of being disgraced in the eyes of his enemies , that he backed 
down from executing his oft-repeated and unconditional 
threat to destroy his rebellious and rascally people. He 
then goes on to say that, being afraid to execute this 
threat, he had sworn to take vengeance on his people in 
some other way. He also informs us that, in order to have 
a pretext for what he proposed to do to them, he had him¬ 
self caused them to commit many wicked acts. “ Where¬ 
fore I gave them also statutes that were not good, and 
judgments whereby they should not live : and I polluted 
them in their own gifts, in that they caused to pass through 
the fire all that openeth the womb, that I might make them 
desolate [Why did he wish to make them desolate ?] to 
the end that they anight know that I am the Lord ” (Ezek 
xx, 25, 26). Was not this a rather strange method by 
which to convince them that he was the Lord ? Could he 
not have convinced them of this in a less cruel way ? 


690 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


In Ex. xxxiii, 3, we read : “ . . . for I will not go up 
in the midst of thee : for thou art a stiff-necked people : 
lest I consume thee in the way.” Here God is represented 
not only as being limited in his presence, but also as being 
afraid to trust himself with his people—afraid lest, in one 
of his frequent fits of fearful fury, he might entirely lose 
control of himself and murder them all. I do not know 
which was more to be pitied, this poor insane God, or the 
unfortunate people who were constantly exposed to his in¬ 
sane fury. “Therefore he said that he'would destroy 
them, had not Moses, his chosen, stood before him in the 
breach, to turn away his wrath, lest he should destroy 
them” (Ps. cvi, 23). Here this poor inefficient God is 
represented as very frankly admitting that he was entirely 
under the control of his favorite, Moses. 

“ And I sought for a man among them, that should make 
up the hedge, and stand in the gap before me for the land, 
that I should not destroy it: but I found none. There¬ 
fore, have I poured out mine indignation upon them : I 
have consumed them with the fire of my wrath ” (Ezek. 
xxii, 30, 31). From this, it is clear that, in Ids frequent 
fits of frantic fury, this unfortunate God had no power to 
control himself ; that he did not really wish to destroy the 
people in question, and that he tried hard to find some one 
to play Moses with him—some one to coax him not to be 
so naughty ; but that, finding no such person, he actually 
had committed the horrible deed which he mentions, and 
which he had so earnestly hoped that some man, more 
powerful than himself, would prevent him from committing. 
Poor, insane God! What a monstrous character his own 
inspired writings give him! With such a God, I would 
not exchange places. 

In all these cases, God is represented as being subject 
to uncontrollable fits of anger, jealousy, fury, fear, etc.— 
all of them the lowest of human passions—and as saying 
and doing things far worse than were ever said or done by 
the most despicable of human tyrants. Notwithstanding 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


691 


all this, however, Moses, according to his own account, 
could, at all times, and under all circumstances, lead this 
fearfully passionate God hither and thither at pleasure, 
and, with the utmost ease, vanquish him in every argu¬ 
ment. And now, let me ask, could any man thus com¬ 
pletely control the action of the illimitable and inconceiv¬ 
ably glorious power that constitutes the Supreme Kuler of 
the Universe—the force that sustains, in all of their un¬ 
speakably sublime revolutions, the billions of billions of 
mighty worlds and systems of worlds that crowd every 
portion of infinite space ? Dare my opponents claim that 
this infinitely mighty and glorious power or force ever goes 
into sudden and uncontrollable fits of anger, jealousy, fury, 
fear, etc. ? Dare they claim that it ever takes walks in 
gardens, regales itself upon the savory odors of roast 
meats, breaks its solemn promises, commits wholesale 
murders, etc. ? Who, unless he be a fool that cannot rea¬ 
son, a coward that dare not reason, or a bigot that will not 
reason—who, I ask, will hesitate to answer that this in¬ 
finitely great and glorious power never does, and never did 
do, any of these things ? What, then, is this old, angry, 
jealous, furious, bloodthirsty, and yet cowardly being—this 
man-controlled, beef-loving, promise-breaking, weak-rea¬ 
soning God of the Bible, except an old priest-invented, 
priest-paving pagan myth—a monstrous remnant of primi¬ 
tive superstition and ignorance ? 

In the thirty-second chapter of Genesis, we learn that 
God, in a material body like that of a man, had a “rough- 
and-tumble ” wrestling match with Jacob, who, notwith¬ 
standing he was over a hundred years of age, was more 
than a match for this materialized God. From this, we 
learn that God has a body, like that of a man, and a very 
weak body at that. From the fact that he did not know 
who Jacob was, until Jacob had told him, we learn that 
his knowledge was not superior to that of a man; and 
from the fact that, after his defeat, he wanted to go away 
from Jacob, we learn that, at that time, he was not present 


692 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


anywhere else in the universe. How, then, did the uni¬ 
verse manage to run while he was thus absent from it? 

“ I will go down now, and see whether they have done 
altogether according to the cry of it, which is come unto 
me ; and if not, I will know ” (Gen. xviii, 21). Here God 
is represented as being limited, both in his presence and 
his knowledge. In the first part of this same chapter, he 
is represented as having a body exactly like that of a man, 
as having been mistaken for a man, and as having, like a 
hungry man, eaten, at Abraham’s table, a substantial meal 
of bread, meat, milk, etc. He is also represented as being 
weary from walking, as having dirty feet, etc., and as rest¬ 
ing himself in the shade of a tree; as being, in short, 
in every respect, like a man. If, then, his body was 
not a real body, composed, like that of a man, of flesh, 
blood, bones, and other forms of matter, what kind of body 
was it, and how was it able to contain the real food which 
he then ate ? Besides this, when he changed himself back 
into an invisible spirit, if, indeed, he really did thus change 
himself, what became of the substantial food which he had 
just eaten? Did it all drop down in a mass upon the 
ground, just as he had eaten it, or did it also change into 
spirit, and, like himself, become invisible? Did the infi¬ 
nite power that rules the universe ever thus assume the 
body of a man? Was it ever thus weary from walking? 
Did it ever thus rest itself in the shade of a tree ? Did it 
ever thus have dirty feet ? Did it ever thus wash its feet ? 
Did it ever thus fill its stomach with bread, meat, milk, 
etc. ? Was it ever thus limited in its presence ? In short, 
was it ever thus, to all intents and purposes, a mere man! 

“And the Lord was with Judah ; and he drave out the 
inhabitants of the mountains; but could not drive out the 
inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron” 
(Jud. i, 19). Could a few chariots of iron have thus baf¬ 
fled the infinite power or force that rules the illimitable 
universe ? 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


693 


In the last six verses of the thirty-third chapter of 
Exodus, we have, between God and his chief favorite, 
Moses, a very unique dialogue. In this dialogue, Moses 
asks to see God’s glory. When making this request, 
Moses doubtless expected that God would grant it by 
showing his face; the face being always regarded as the 
most glorious part of the person of either a man or a God. 
In this expectation, however, Moses is doomed to be dis¬ 
appointed. God informs him that his (God’s) faoe is far 
too glorious for a mortal to gaze upon; that a sight of it 
would be instant and certain death to a mortal beholder ; 
that, under the circumstances, the best that he can do 

will be to show his-, the nameless antipode of his face , 

his “ back parts,” which, being far less glorious than his 
face, can be seen with comparative safety. Disappointed 
in his hope of seeing any more glorious part, Moses is now 
thankful for the privilege of seeing even this, the least 
glorious part of all, and this part, God imperfectly willing 
to show. Before the show begins, however, Moses is re¬ 
quired to stand back in a cleft of the rock upon which 
they are standing, so that he can see nothing except di¬ 
rectly in front of him. Besides this, while getting ready, 
unbuttoning his garments, etc., to show the parts prom¬ 
ised, God holds one of his hands over this meek old man’s 
eyes lest he should see some of the more glorious parts of 
the divine organism. When all is ready, God takes away 
his hand, and actually does make a shockingly indecent 
exposure of his “back parts ” to the delighted gaze of the 
strangely so-called meek old Moses. 

And now, let me ask, how can the champions of the 
Bible have the face to claim that the Supreme Euler—the 
infinite sum of all the forces that govern the universe— 
ever came down thus, in a bodily form, upon a small 
mountain of this little planet, and made so shockingly an 
indecent exposure of its “ back parts,” to gratify the mor¬ 
bid curiosity of one old man ? What would you say of 
such a story if it were told in some other book concerning 



694 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


some other god? And what would you say of the story if 
I should tell you that I had met God, in a bodily form, 
out upon some little hill of your own neighborhood ; that 
I had there held a long and familiar conversation' with 
him, and that I had induced him to show me his—his— 
his—“back parts?” Would you, even on the strength 
of my direct testimony, believe that these events had 
actually occurred, and that the party who exhibited 
his “ back parts ” was actually the infinite power that 
rules the universe ? If you would not believe all these 
things on my direct testimony, which has never yet been 
called in question, how can you believe them on the mere 
hearsay testimony of a story-teller whose veracity has al¬ 
ways been called in question ? 

The custom of thus exhibiting only the back parts of 
their various gods, and of thus pretending that the faces 
of those gods were too glorious for mortal eyes to gaze 
upon, was once a very common one in nearly all countries. 
Indeed, it is said to still prevail in Thibet and in Japan, 
in which countries the gods are simply living men, who, 
by some priestly process, are converted into genuine 
deities. From this disgusting custom, our Bible story in 
question undoubtedly takes its origin. Many priests, too, 
of more than ordinary ambition and cunning, who have 
not claimed to be gods, but who have claimed to be the 
special favorites and companions of their respective gods, 
have put on vails, and then pretended that, by contact 
with the gods, they had imbibed so much of the divine 
afflatus that their own faces, ugly enough no doubt in fact, 
had become too glorious to be safely gazed upon by com¬ 
mon mortals. This trick, which, with many others, Moses 
practiced with great success, was well calculated to impose 
upon the credulity of the ignorant and superstitious men 
of former times. 

“ And I will give this people favor in the sight of the 
Egyptians : and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye 
shall not go empty : but every woman shall borrow of her 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


695 


neighbor, and of her that sojonrneth in her house, jewels 
of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and je shall 
put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and 
ye shall spoil the Egyptians ” (Ex. iii, 21-22). By reading 
the whole story of which this passage forms a part, we 
learn that God instructed Moses to lie to the Egyptians, 
and make them believe that he merely wished to lead his 
people out a few miles, to hold a religious meeting, after 
the holding of which he would return. We also learn 
that, by his own almighty power, exerted directly upon 
them, God actually did make the Egyptians believe this 
lie, and look with favor upon Moses and his co-conspira¬ 
tors, who wished to borrow , as they called their treacherous 
act of robbery, “ jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and 
raiment,” for this pretended meeting. We learn further 
that, thus deceived by God himself, the Egyptians kindly 
loaned , to these treacherous Hebrews, all their most 
valuable jew~elry, clothing, etc., fully expecting that, 
according to promise, these valuables would all be re¬ 
turned within a few days. We learn still further that, 
after having thus, by God’s order, played this outrageous 
wholesale confidence game upon their kind and confiding 
Egyptian friends, guests, and neighbors, the Hebrews, 
still acting under God’s orders, fled from the country 
loaded with the spoils thus treacherously obtained. We 
learn, finally, that when Pharaoh pursued these worse 
than robbers, God treacherously destroyed him and his 
whole army. And now I venture the assertion that, no 
matter what you may pretend to believe in regard to this 
matter, not one of you actually does believe that the 
illimitable power which keeps untold billions of mighty 
worlds all in perfect order, ever thus instructed and aided 
a band of thieves to so treacherously rob a vast number of 
kind-hearted women. 

In Ezek. xxxix, 10, God is represented as saying that 
his people “shall spoil those that spoiled them, and rob 
those that robbed them. ” This form of robbing, being osten- 



696 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


siblj performed in the way of retaliation upon open 
enemies, was not so bad as was the so-called borrowing 
affair which I have just described. In a case like this, I, 
being an infidel, might, perhaps, be induced to do a little 
robbing myself. I trust, however, that my opponents, 
being believers, could not, under any circumstances, be in¬ 
duced to do so. I trust, too, that no thought of earthly 
gain has ever had anything to do with their being the 
worshipers of this notorious robber God. Be all this as 
it may, however, does the infinite power that rules ther 
universe ever authorize robbery at all ? 

In Ex. xxxii, 27, 29, we read : “ Thus saith the Lord 
God of Israel, Put every man his sword by his side, and 
go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and 
slay every man his brother , and every man his companion,. 
and every man his neighbor. And the children of Levi did 
according to the word of Moses: and there fell of the 
people that day about three thousand men. For Moses 
had said, Consecrate yourselves to-day, to the Lord, even 
every man upon his son , and upon his brother; that he may 
bestow upon you a blessing this day.” What could be 
more horrible than this ? Three thousand—or, as many 
of our Bibles have it, twenty-three thousand—bleeding 
human sacrifices offered to God in one day, as the price of 
his blessing ? And, like a ghoul, God accepted this horri¬ 
ble gift, this monstrous mass of ghastly corpses as a pleasing 
sacrifice; and, in return for it, bestowed his blessing, 
whatever that was, upon the horrid human butchers who 
so readily offered it. 

And yet in this soul-sickening case, the blood-be¬ 
smeared murderers, upon whom God bestowed his blessing, 
were themselves guilty of the very same offense for which 
they thus so cruelly and so treacherously butchered their 
poor unsuspecting sons, brothers, neighbors, and compan¬ 
ions. Moses, it seems, had been absent nearly six weeks, 
professedly spending this time, in company with God, camp¬ 
ing out upon a mountain in the neighborhood. During his. 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


697 

absence, his brother Aaron was left in command of the 
people. While acting thus as commander-in-chief, Aaron 
made, for the people to worship, a golden calf, which was 
certainly as harmless a god as they could have selected to 
worship. Upon his return, however, Moses looked, or at 
least pretended to look, upon this calf-god enterprise with 
a great deal of disfavor, as did also the calf-god’s great 
rival, Jehovah himself. Instead, however, of punishing 
Aaron, who was certainly the principal offender in this 
affair, God, Moses & Co. made him their high priest, 
and caused to be mercilessly butchered many thousands 
of comparatively innocent persons, whose only offense was 
they had obeyed Aaron’s commands. 

And this is the God, all unchanged and unchangeable, 
who, by the sword, was forced upon our ancestors, and 
whom, simply because you were not born to any other god, 
you still continue to blindly worship. None but the 
mentally blind could worship this impersonation of nearly 
everything that is truly monstrous. . Since, according to 
your own teachings, this fearfully atrocious God is utterly 
incapable of any change, or of any improvement, what 
assurance have you that, on some occasion in the near 
future, he will not, as the price of his blessing to you , re¬ 
quire you thus, in cold blood, to cruelly and treacherously 
butcher your own sons, your own brothers, your own neigh¬ 
bors, and your own companions. Since he was once guilty 
of this horrible act, dare you claim that he is now too good 
to repeat it ? And would such a requirement, if now made 
of yourselves , be any more horrible in its atrocity than it 
was on the occasion in question, when made of the He¬ 
brews ? Would not the nature of the act be, of necessity, 
the very same? Bring the case home to yourselves, 
therefore, and then, perhaps, you can see it in its true 
light. If God should now require you thus in cold blood 
to treacherously butcher your own sons, your own brothers, 
and your own other dear ones, would you, or would you 
not, obey that requirement? If you would obey it, and 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


<698 

imbrue your murderous bands in the life-blood of your own 
children and other loved ones, then, indeed, you are true 
and consistent worshipers of this bloody monstrosity 
called God, and are excellent examples of what the teach¬ 
ings of the Bible inevitably tend to make of men. If, on 
the other hand, you would not obey it, then you are, un¬ 
deniably, a set of base hypocrites, and are not, as you pre¬ 
tend to be, the true and obedient worshipers of this hid¬ 
eous monstrosity. Nothing short of a perfect willingness, 
on Abraham’s part, to butcher and to roast his own son, 
would satisfy this monstrous God, in the case of that 
famous old polygamist and cut-throat, and nothing short 
of a similar willingness on your part to butcher and to 
roast your own children, whenever called upon so to do, 
will satisfy him in your case. Kemember that this terrible 
God never changes—never grows any better. Abraham 
was perfectly willing to butcher his own son, and to roast 
him, in order, with the fumes of his burning flesh, to gratify 
the insatiate olfactories of this hideous deity; and this 
willingness, on Abraham’s part, to commit this unutterably 
atrocious crime, was imputed to him, by this bloody God, 
for righteousness. This God may, or may not, command 
you thus to butcher and to roast your own children. Hav¬ 
ing never changed, however, since he did make such a 
command, he is certainly none too good to make such a 
command now. Whether he does, or does not, ever make 
any such command, however, makes no difference. If you 
would be righteous in his eyes, you must, at all times, be 
perfectly willing, under any conceivable circumstances, to 
commit this most horrible crime, in case he should see fit 
to command you to commit it. You must not blame Free¬ 
man, Guiteau, and others for their similar obedience to this 
God. This doctrine is plainly taught in the Bible, and if the 
doctrine be a pernicious one, then, of necessity, the Bible 
is a pernicious book. Put yourselves in the places of 
either the murderers or the murdered, and how does this 
case appear? And you sing praises to this terrible God, 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


699 


and persecute me so bitterly, because my soul revolts from 
the worship of so bloody a monster. Does the infinite 
power that rules the universe ever command men thus in 
cold blood to butcher their own sons, their own brothers 
their own neighbors, and their own companions ? 

“ And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, 
both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, 
and ass, with the edge of the sword ” (Josh, vi, 21). For 
a long list of similar butcheries, see the entire book of 
Joshua, and especially the tenth chapter. By the direct 
command of the God whom you now worship, and who is 
no better now than he was then, Joshua invariably thus 
butchered, without any distinction of age, sex, or condi¬ 
tion, all of the inhabitants of all of the many cities that 
he captured. In every case of the taking of a city, he 
“utterly destroyed all the souls that were therein ; he left 
none remaining, ... he utterly destroyed all that 
breathed.” All of these horrible wholesale murders were 
committed, too, not for anything wrong that the poor de¬ 
fenseless victims had done, but simply because this 
adopted God of yours, who was then merely the tutelary 
divinity of the Hebrews alone, wanted their lands for his 
own chosen band of robbers and murderers. The whole 
soul-sickening history closes as follows : “ And all these 

kings and their land did Joshua take at one time ; because 
the Lord God of Israel fought for Israel” (Josh, x, 42). 
How can you have the face to claim that the illimitable 
force that rules the universe was ever this bloody monster 
—this “ Lord God of Israel ?” 

In the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, we have an ac¬ 
count of the destruction of the Midianites, by the command 
of this same fearfully blood-thirsty tutelary divinity of the 
Hebrews. In its soul-sickening atrocity, this utterly un¬ 
called for butchery eclipses all other butcheries of which 
we have any account in the entire history of the world. 
The soldiers who had been sent out against Midian slew 
all of the Midianitish men, who seem to have been to- 


700 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


tally unprepared for such an attack. More merciful, how¬ 
ever, than was “the Lord God of Israel,” these soldiers 
spared the women and the children, and brought them all 
in as captives. Because these poor, helpless, and unoffend¬ 
ing captives had been thus spared by the soldiery, Moses 
was very angry. Acting under the orders of his God—the 
God that he himself had made, the God that you now blindly 
worship—he, therefore, went out to meet the soldiers, and 
said to them: “ Have ye saved all the women alive ? Now, 
therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill 
every woman that hath known a man by lying with him. 
But all the women children that have not known man by 
lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.” In order to 
ascertain which ones of these females had, and which ones 
had not, “ known a man by lying with him,” all of them 
who had attained womanhood had, of necessity, to be sub¬ 
jected to a surgical examination of certain nameless parts 
of their bodies. A public examination, so revolting to all 
the instincts of female modesty, performed by the lewd 
and unskillful priests and soldiery, cannot be more than 
hinted at here. 

When, however, this unutterably revolting examination 
was ended; when, by this means, the virgins had all been 
discovered, and when they had been separated from the 
other women, then began the cold-blooded, the soul-sick¬ 
ening, wholesale butchery of the many tens of thousands, 
of wives, mothers, and male infants. The signal was given. 
At once the air was rent, at once the earth was made to 
tremble with the deafening yells of the murderers, now 
raging like ravenous wild beasts at the smell of blood, and 
the piercing shrieks of their helpless victims, now wild 
with unutterable terror. Picture, if you can, the whole 
unspeakbly horrible scene as being now enacted before 
your own eyes. Picture it, too, if you can, as being en¬ 
acted with your own wives, your own sisters, your own 
mothers, your own married daughters, your own bright 
little infant sons as the victims. A hundred thousand or 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


701 


more are to be butchered. The little ones—your own 
sweet babies among them—cling to their mothers, and 
franctically plead for protection which the poor doomed 
mothers, of course, can not give. On their bended knees, 
in tones that would move the hearts of the foulest fiends 
of hell, the mothers—your own wife, your own mother, 
your own married sisters and married daughters among 
them—implore mercy, not for themselves, but for their 
poor little babes. Knowing no such thing as mercy, how¬ 
ever, God’s servants tear tens of thousands of infants at a 
time from the arms of their mothers, hurl them by their 
feet in the air, and crush their poor, tender little heads 
upon the stones. Hear the awftd—the unearthly wailings 
of those bereaved mothers! Earth never before heard a 
sound so full of unutterable woe—of unspeakable despair. 
But that awful, that never-to-be-forgotten, cry is being for¬ 
ever hushed. By the direct orders of the God that you 
either blindly or wickedly worship, the heads of these 
poor helpless mothers are now being cleft from their 
shoulders and made to roll in the dust, their tender bosoms 
are being pierced with rude weapons of iron, their skulls 
are being crushed with heavy clubs and stones, and their 
throats are being cut and their bowels ripped open with 
formidable butcher-knives. Vast heaps of warm, quiver¬ 
ing, bleeding corpses cover the ground. Great pools of 
dark, smoking blood are collecting in all the low places, 
and a fearfully sickening odor is arising from this, the 
most horrible of all the slaughter pens that the earth ever 
knew. Yes, if you can do so, picture to yourself all the 
unutterable horrors of this, the most unspeakably hideous 
scene ever enacted upon earth. If you can do so, picture 
to yourself your own loved ones all being thus brutally 
butchered ; then, if you still feel like doing so, break forth 
into loud hallelujahs of praise to the blood-besmeared deific 
monstrosity who is having it done. In the name of hu¬ 
manity, however, do not ask me to blacken my soul by 
joining you in these your worse than hellish orgies ! And 


702 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


do not ever again blame the Mormons, the faithful wor¬ 
shipers of this bloody God, for the Mountain Meadow 
Massacre, or deny that this God commanded the massacre. 

In a poem, entitled the “ Devil’s Defense,” I have de¬ 
picted this whole fiendish affair as follows: 

“ God ord’reth his band, with a bloody hand, 

To butcher both youg and old; 

To render the land, like/Awaste of sand, 

Where the billows once have rolled. 

They hasten to do as the Lord doth command, 

Like demons let loose, they destroy the whole land ; 

Alas! for their victims ! wherever they turn, 

Destruction awaits, while their villages burn. 

Great volumes of smoke, like a vast floating pall, 

Hang dark o’er the valleys, the mountains, and all; 

From the depths of their darkness, arise on the air, 

Such terrible yells and such screams of despair, 

That all the damned spirits and demons of hell 
Could never this scene in its horrors excel. 

“ Of strong men and brave, but a few now remain, 
Their bodies lie scattered all over the plain ; 

Those few are surrounded—like wild beasts at bay, 

They rush on their murd’rers, they yell and they slay; 
But, beaten by numbers, their eyes gleaming fire, 

They scream their defiance, they fall and expire. 

“Now bursts forth anew, on the smoke-burdened air, 
More terrible wailings of utter despair; 

Old women, whose locks are as white as the snow, 

Are butchered and left for the vulture and crow. 

The mothers all flee with their babes at their breast— 

Oh ! could they save these, they could lose all the rest— 
But flight is in vain, by the Lord’s chosen men, 

They’re caught and conveyed to a vast slaughter pen, 

A signal is given, around them there rains 
A shower of blood mixed with their babies’ crushed brains. 
Oh! horrible ! horrible ! maddening sight! 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


703 


Haste ! liaste ! ye deep darkness, and liide it in night! 

The mothers still cling to the bodies yet hot, 

They gaze in the eyes, but are recognized not; 

The lips that so lately were wreathed in a smile, 

All mangled and gory, still quiver awhile; 

Death’s pallor creeps over each poor little face, 

The heart-throbbings cease, and the eyes glaze apace. 

The mothers see this, and are now glad to die, 

No longer they struggle, no longer they cry; 

Their throats are now cut, and their blood, like a spout. 
On their babies’ dead faces, comes gushing right out; 
Their bodies, unburied, encumber the sod, 

And this is all done by the orthodox God.” 

After witnessing this unspeakably horrible butchery of 
their mothers, their married sisters, and their little 
brothers, 32,000 virgin girls were divided, for the vilest of 
purposes, among the blood-besmeared murderers—the 
priests, the soldiers, and the citizens all coming in for a 
share of them. For his own share, the God that had all 
these atrocious murders committed—the unchanged and 
unchangeable God that you now worship—received thirty- 
two of these virgins, to be used, of course, by his priests 
as his proxies. 

And this, the most hideous of all monstrosities, is the 
God to whom you pay your blind devotions, although you 
admit that he is no better now-than he was when he had 
all of these horrible crimes committed. This is the God 
for whom you erect so many of those gorgeous resorts of 
pride, vanity, bigotry, fashion, and intolerance, called 
churches, cathedrals, etc. This is the God for whom you 
keep up so many vast armies of worse than useless non¬ 
producers called priests, preachers, ministers of the 
gospel, etc. This is the God to whom you professedly 
offer those buncombe public addresses of yours, which 
you are pleased to call prayers. This is the God whom 
you now, with the most abject flatteries, bamboozle into 


704 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


serving yon, just as the Hebrews formerly bamboozled him, 
with roast meats, into serving them. But is this God the 
infinite force that rules the universe ? Who can have the 
face to declare that he is ? 

From a great number of passages like the following, 
we learn that this monstrous God was invented exclusively 
for the Hebrews, and that he was never intended to be the 
God of any other people : “ And I will establish my cove¬ 
nant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their 
generations, for an everlasting covenant ; to be a God unto 
thee, and to thy seed after thee ” (Gen. xvii, 7). Here God 
speaks of himself, not in a general or unlimited manner, 
as he would speak if he regarded himself as the only God, 
but in a particular and limited manner as “ a God ; ” and 
since, as every grammarian knows, the limiting particle a 
means simply one , the expression “ a God ” evidently 
means simply one of the Gods. The whole matter, then, 
reduces to this, that one of the Gods, called Jehovah, 
promises to be a special God or protector, a tutelary di¬ 
vinity, to a certain man and his posterity. Indeed, as I 
have already fully explained in former lectures, the Hebrew 
word Eloliim, which is the first appellation of the deity to 
be found in the Bible, is a noun in the 'plural number, and 
signifies an assemblage , corporation , or congress of gods, and 
not an individual God. At the start, all of these Gods 
seem to have worked harmoniously together as partners 
in the creation of the world, of man, and of all other 
things. After a while, however, when men had become 
quite numerous, these Gods seem to have dissolved their 
firm, their congress, or Elohim, and to have each taken, as 
his individual share of the partnership property, a certain 
portion of the earth and a certain tribe or nation of men. 
In this division, Baal chose for his portion the Assyrians, 
with the country which they inhabited; Chemosh chose 
the Ammonites and their country; Jehovah, the Hebrews 
and whatever country he might be able to take for them. 
And so of all the other Gods. Each of them became the 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


705 


tutelary divinity of a particular people to whom alone 
lie devoted liis entire attention, and whose entire devo¬ 
tion as worshipers he claimed to himself alone. All of 
these Gods were eqally real , and were usually admitted to 
be so by one another’s worshipers. Naturally enough, 
however, each nation or people were wont to claim that 
their own particular God or tutelary divinity was, in some 
way, superior to any of the other Gods. Thus, while the 
Hebrews generally looked upon Baal, Chemosh, Molech, 
etc., as real Gods , and while they often worshiped them as 
such, they were, nevertheless, wont to arrogantly claim 
that their own tutelary divinity, Jehovah, was far superior 
in every respect to any of these other Gods. They were 
wont to express this assumed superiority by calling him 
the “ Lord God,” that is, the Lord or Chief of the Gods, 
the “ God of gods,” etc. 

“ And ye shall be my people , and I will be your God ” 
(Jer. xxx, 22). “ For thou art an holy people unto the Lord 

thy God, and the Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar 
people unto himself , above all the nations that are upon 
the earth ” (Deut. xiv, 2). “ And ye shall be holy [that is, 

entirely set aside or devoted] unto me: for / the Lord am 
holy [that is, entirely set aside or devoted unto you], and 
Lave severed you from other people, that ye should be mine ” 
{Lev. xx, 26). The “ other people,” of course, were not 
his. They all belonged of right to other Gods who, 
in the general division of which I have spoken, had chosen 
them, just as this God had chosen the Hebrews. All of 
the passages which I have just quoted, and which were 
all either spoken directly by God’s inventors or put into 
his mouth by them, indicate a covenant or contract by 
which the contracting parties, God and the Hebrews, 
mutually bind themselves to be exclusively each other’s. 
Of necessity, this contract of mutual exclusiveness was as 
binding upon the one of the contracting parties as it was 
upon the other. If, by its provisions, the Hebrews were 
bound to confine themselves to this one God, then, of 


706 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


necessity, by the same provisions, he was bound to confine 
himself to this one people. Indeed, whether applied to 
God or to the people, the word holy means simply set 
apart or exclusive. To be holy unto God, then, is simply 
to be set apart to him, to be exclusively his. No one 
can be holy at all, without being thus set apart or exclu¬ 
sively devoted to some particular person, people, use, or 
thing. When, therefore, God, declares himself to be holy, 
he simply declares himself to be thus exclusively set apart 
or devoted to some particular people, purpose, or thing. 
He requires the Hebrews to be holy or exclusive to him; 
and, as a reason for requiring this exclusiveness on their 
part, he informs them that he is thus holy or exclusive. It 
is true that he does not say to whom he is thus holy or exclu¬ 
sive, but the connection renders it impossible for him to 
mean anybody except the Hebrews. Had he meant to be 
the God of all nations, he would not have been holy or ex¬ 
clusive to any of them. By never becoming the God of any 
other people, he faithfully kept his part of the covenant 
in question, and nothing enraged him so much as for the 
Hebrews, by becoming the people of some other God, to 
break their part of it. 

“ Turn, O backsliding children, saith the Lord, for I am 
married unto you ” (Jer. iii, 14). “ Behold, the days come, 
saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the 
house of Israel, and with the house of Judah : not accord¬ 
ing to the contract that I made with their fathers in the 
day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the 
land of Egypt: which my covenant they brake, although 
I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord ” (Jer. xxxi, 
81-32). “Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy 
daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me , and these hast 
thou sacrificed unto them [certain other gods of whom he 
was extremely jealous] to be devoured. Is this of tliy 
whoredoms a small matter, That thou hast slain my chil¬ 
dren? ” (Ezek. xvi, 20-21). From these, and a great many 
other similar passages, we learn that the peculiar union 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


707 


into which God and Israel entered with each other was a 
marriage union. And did not the very nature of this 
union bind both of the parties to it, both God the husband, 
and Israel the wife, to equally forsake all others and to 
cleave unto each other alone ? If it was whoredom, as 
God always called it, for the bride in this case to have any 
love intercourse with any other God, would it not have 
been equally whoredom for the husband to have held 
similar love intercourse with any other people ? Was the 
husband any less bound than was the wife ? Had he any 
other wife ? If not, could he properly have held any love 
intercourse with any other people ? If not, was he not 
exclusively the God, the tutelary divinity, of the Hebrews? 
If there really be any love intercourse between this God, 
this husband of the Hebrews, and any other people—the 
Christians, for instance—does not that intercourse consti¬ 
tute a case of whoredom or adultery ? 

From the fact that this married God was almost con¬ 
stantly in a towering rage of jealousy because of the in¬ 
timacy of his wife with certain other Gods—from the fact 
that he was almost constantly lecturing her against those 
Gods, and accusing her of adultery or whoredom with 
them, we learn that he believed them to be genuine deities, 
just as real, just as substantial, as was he himself. As it 
is utterly impossible for a man to become really jealous of 
that which he does not believe to have any existence—as 
it is utterly impossible for him to really believe that his 
wife has actually committed adultery or whoredom, with¬ 
out having had illicit intercourse with a real man, or some¬ 
thing else real—so it was with God. He could not pos¬ 
sibly have been so jealous as he was of Gods whom he did 
not believe to have any existence. He could not possibly 
have believed that his wife had actually committed adul¬ 
tery or whoredom with those Gods without also believing 
that the Gods themselves were real Gods similar to him¬ 
self. And if he did thus believe, as he undeniably did„ 
that those his various rivals were real Gods the same as 


708 


TIIE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


himself, was lie, or was he not, correct in that belief? If 
he was correct, then he was, and still is, only one of many 
real Gods, and he may not be, in any respect, superior to 
any of the balance of them. In this case, the champions 
of the Bible teach a lie when they teach, as they all do, 
that he is himself the only real true God that ever existed. 
If he was not correct in his belief—if he was laboring 
under a gross and pernicious error in regard to this matter 
—then he undeniably was, and, without a change for the 
the better—a change which his worshipers will not permit 
him to have—he must still be a very ignorant personage. 
In this case, the champions of the Bible teach a lie when 
they teach, as they all do, that he is absolutely omniscient. 
In any possible view of the case, therefore, the champions 
of the Bible are convicted of teaching a lie; and, in no 
possible view of the case, could this jealous-husband God 
have been, or could he still be, the Supreme Euler of the 
Universe. 

1 If, in order to escape this unpleasant dilemma, the 
champions of the Bible should conclude to deny that their 
God believed his various and often successful rivals to be 
real Gods, they would only make the matter worse. They 
would simply make their own God a huge idiot, forever 
foaming with furious jealousy—jealousy of nothing at all; 
an atrocious monster, forever insulting and abusing his 
wife for having committed adultery or whoredom with 
nothing at all—with Baal, with Cliemosli, with Molech, 
with the Great Giascutis, with the Great Jumping Jingo, 
or with something else which he very well knew never had 
any existence. They would also make their own God a 
very feeble being, rarely able to successfully cope, in his 
wife’s affections or in anything else, with his rivals, these 
utter nonentities. 

“ Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the God 
of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Is¬ 
rael? . . (Num. xvi, 9.) “ For they call themselves of 

the holy city, and stay themselves upon the God of Israel ” 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


709 


(Is. xlviii, 2). “ So now the Lord God of Israel has dis¬ 

possessed the Amorites [another God’s people] from be¬ 
fore his people Israel , and shouldst thou possess it? Wilt 
not thou possess that which Chemosh thy God giveth thee to 
possess? So whomsoever the Lord our God shall drive 
out from before us , them will ice possess ” (Jud. xi, 23, 24). 
In all of these passages, the “God of Israel” is mentioned, 
just as is the “ king of Israel ” in other passages, as a per¬ 
sonage peculiar or exclusive to Israel; as a personage who 
had no claim to the love, the allegiance, or the adoration 
of any other people, and to whose love and protection no 
other people had any claim. He had no more claim to be 
regarded as the universal God of all nations than had the 
God of the Amorites, Chemosh, who is mentioned in ex¬ 
actly the same manner. 

The last passage quoted was spoken by Jephthah, 
commander-in-chief of the Isiaelitisli armies, to the king 
of the Amorites. From this passage, we learn that Jeph¬ 
thah did not doubt that Chemosh was a real God, standing 
in the same relation to his chosen people, the Amorites, 
as that in which Jehovah stood to his chosen people, the 
Hebrews. We learn, too, that Jephthah evidently believed 
that Chemosh could just as truly give lands to his people 
as Jehovah could give them to his. Indeed, as I have al¬ 
ready said, every nation was supposed to have its own 
peculiar or exclusive tutelary divinity. All of these divin¬ 
ities were supposed to be equally real Gods, but possessed 
of different degrees of power, intelligence, etc.; each nation 
believing that their own God was superior to any of the 
others. The God that you now worship was only one of 
many similar deities, and, in choosing him, you did no better 
than you would have done had you chosen Baal, Chemosh, 
or any of the other similar Gods. Indeed, I doubt -whether 
you did so well. As given in the Bible, his record is 
rather worse than that of any other God. If you know of 
any God with a worse record, what God is it, and in what 
respect is his record worse ? 


710 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


You may claim that, unlike most of the other Gods, 
your God never required and never accepted human sacri¬ 
fices. The Bible, however, clearly teaches that he did require 
them, and did accept them. “And Jephthahvowed a vow 
unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver 
the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, 
that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to 
meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Am¬ 
mon, shall surely be the Lord’s and I will offer it up for a 
burnt-offering ” (Jud. xi, 30, 31). Since Jephthah cer¬ 
tainly could not have expected a bullock, a ram, or any 
other clean beast, to come “ forth of the doors of ” his 
“house to meet” him on his return from battle, and since 
he certainly could, and certainly would, expect the various 
members of his family to thus come forth, he certainly 
meant to devote to God some member of his family. In¬ 
deed, the great value which obviously attached to the 
promised sacrifice could not have attached to any other 
living thing in his possession. Even if he had been ac¬ 
customed to keep his bullocks, his rams, etc., in his 
“house ” and even if he had expected these beasts to joy¬ 
fully come “forth of the doors of” his “house to meet” 
him on his return, he certainly could not have had the face 
to thus ask God to give him a great victory in return for 
one of these common and cheap sacrifices, hundreds of 
which were offered to God every day. Jephthah certainly 
meant to offer a sacrifice corresponding in value to the 
benefit expected in return a sacrifice which he himself re¬ 
garded, and which he correctly expected God to regard, as 
surpassing a bullock or a ram in value, just as much as a 
great national victory surpasses in value the most common 
every-day occurrence of individual life. He certainly 
meant to offer a sacrifice which, by its great desirability to 
him, would be an effectual inducement to God to grant the 
(desired victory; and no common sacrifice of a bullock, or 
a ram, could have been expected to constitute any such ef¬ 
fectual inducement. At any rate, in fulfilment of his vow. 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


711 


lie did offer to God, in the form of a burnt-offering, his 
own daughter, and God did accept that horrible offering. 

Admitting, however, that, when making the vow in 
question, Jephtliah may have been accustomed to keep his 
cattle in his house with his wife and children, and admit¬ 
ting that, like his wife and children, these cattle may have 
been accustomed to come “forth of the doors of” his 
“ house to meet ” him on his return from a journey ; ad¬ 
mitting that, under these circumstances, Jephtliah may 
have been uncertain whether, in return for victory, he 
would have to offer up as a burnt-offering, his wife, his 
daughter, or his bull, how much better do we render the 
matter ? 

My opponents will hardly venture to deny that, what¬ 
ever Jephtliah may or may not have known in regard to 
the matter, God knew full well what the burnt-offering, 
thus rashly promised by Jephthah, would prove to be. If 
he had any such foreknowledge of future events, as my 
opponents claim that he has, he certainly must have known 
exactly what that burnt-offering would be ; and since, in 
return for that offering, he granted a favor worth more 
than ten thousand bulls, he certainly must have regarded 
the single offering expected as worth more than that num¬ 
ber of bulls. And what one living thing of all that 
Jephthah possessed, except his beautiful daughter, could 
have been regarded as of so great value ? At any rate, 
since God had full control of all future events, he undeni¬ 
ably had it in his power to so control those events that the 
promised burnt-offering should be just what he wished it 
to be. And this power, he doubtless exercised. If, then, 
he had not wished it to have been a beautiful young wo¬ 
man, would it have been one? Would he not have either 
rejected Jephtliah’s offer, or else have so controlled events 
that some other creature, and not this young woman, 
should be the first to meet Jephthah on his return from 
battle ? Had he willed it to be otherwise than it was, 
would it not have been otherwise ? If he had nothing to 


712 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


do with the events that resulted in the offering of this, 
young woman to him as a burnt-offering, what proof have 
we that he has ever had anything to do with any of the 
events that have ever occurred upon earth? If those 
events occurred without his having anything to do with 
them, may not all other events have occurred in precisely 
the same manner? 

Be all these things as they may, however, God cer¬ 
tainly did accept Jephthah’s offer, and, in return for the 
thing offered, certainly did, in a miraculous manner, de¬ 
liver the Ammonites into Jephthah’s hands. On his re¬ 
turn home, after this God-procured victory, Jephthah was 
first met by his only daughter, whom he dearly loved, but 
whom, in fulfilment of his vow, he was bound to butcher 
and to roast as an offering to God. He informed her of 
his vow, and she, knowing that the law compelled him to 
fulfil that vow, expressed her willingness to be thus butch¬ 
ered, dressed (not like a lady but like a pig), roasted (still 
like a pig), and served up, a la mode cannzbale, on the 
Lord’s table. All she asked was a stay of proceedings for 
two months that she might “go up and down the moun¬ 
tains, and bewail” her “virginity.” She probably asked 
this delay in order that she might put herself in a first-rate 
condition to be butchered, and might give her flesh as 
delicious a flavor as possible. The very thought that, to* 
the Lord’s fastidious taste, she might prove an unsavory 
dish was probably more than her proud young spirit could 
bear. 

The balance of this charming story, we learn from the ; 
thirty-ninth verse, which says : “ And it came to pass at 

the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, 
who did with her according to his vow which he had 
vowed.” If God had not been perfectly willing that this 
vow should be fulfilled, would he not, before the close of 
those two months, have released Jephthah from the obli¬ 
gation of the vow ? He well knew that, without such a re¬ 
lease from him, Jephthah was compelled, by the laws of 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


713 


the land—laws which God himself had given—to fulfil that 
vow. Does not the fact, then, that, under these circum¬ 
stances, while present witnessing the proceedings, God 
permitted such a sacrifice to be offered to him, prove, be¬ 
yond all reasonable contradiction, that the offering was an 
acceptable one ? Picture to yourselves this God, this in¬ 
ordinate lover of roast meats, sitting quietly by, watching 
Jephthah as he cuts the throat of his only child, his beau¬ 
tiful daughter, as he catches her blood in a basin, as he 
takes out her heart, her liver, her intestines, etc., and as he 
roasts her flesh upon the altar. Yes, picture all these 
things to yourself, and then, if you feel like doing so, 
break forth into songs of praise to this monstrous cannibal 
God. In the name of humanity, however, do not any more 
claim that he is a fit object to be worshiped by any but 
savages, cannibals, Freemans, Guiteaus, et at. ; and do not 
any more blasphemously claim that he is the infinite 
power that rules the universe. 

Here, then, we have a clear case in which a human sac¬ 
rifice was offered to the God of the Bible—the God that 
you worship, and accepted by him. This is as clear a case 
as can be made out against any other God of the world. 
In this case, too, the sacrifice was made, not in violation 
ol God’s laws as revealed to Moses, but strictly in accord¬ 
ance with them. But where is the law, you ask, in accord¬ 
ance with which Jephthah made and executed his vow to 
offer to the Lord a human sacrifice ? It is found in Lev. 
xxvii, 28, 29, and reads as follows : “ Notwithstanding no 

devoted thing [that is, no thing promised to the Lord by a 
vow or an oath], that a man shall devote unto the Lord of 
all that he hath, both of man and of beast, and of the field 
of his possession, shall be sold or redeemed : . . . none 
devoted , which shall be devoted of men [as Jephthali’s 
daughter was], shall be redeemed ; but shall surely be put 
to death .” As you plainly see, this law, which, according 
to your own teachings, was derived from God himself, just 
as fully provides for the devoting of men unto the Lord 


714 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


as it provides for tlie devoting unto him of beasts or of 
anything else ; and it strictly requires every human being, 
as well as every beast, thus devoted, to “ be surely put to 
death.” Having, in accordance with this law, devoted to 
the Lord some member of his family, Jephthah, when he 
perceived that the death lot had fallen upon his only 
child, his beloved daughter, never, for a moment, thought 
of such a thing as the breaking of his vow. He simply 
said: “Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very 
low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for [by the 
vow in question] I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, 
and [because the laws strictly requires every devoted thing 
to “be surely put to death”] I cannot go hack” The He¬ 
brews, too, so far from denouncing and punishing Jeph¬ 
thah as one who, in thus sacrificing his own daughter to the 
Lord, had violated their laws, looked upon him as the pre¬ 
server of those laws, and honored him by making him 
their supreme judge during life. Would time permit me, 
I could show that, under this same law, vast numbers of 
human beings were sacrificed unto the Lord that you now 
worship. I will give only one instance, however—an in¬ 
stance in which he himself demanded the sacrifice. 

In the twenty-first chapter of 2 Sam. we learn that, for 
an offense committed some thirty years before by their 
grandfather, Saul—an offense for which Saul himself had 
never been punished or even reproved—God required 
seven innocent children, Saul’s grandsons, to be offered up 
unto himself as sacrifices to appease his wrath, which had 
strangely kindled up so many years after the commission 
of the alleged offense. Although five of these children 
were his own step-sons, David, who, for obvious reasons, 
was a man after God’s own heart, had this horrible sacrifice 
duly offered. The ninth and the fourteenth verses say : 
“ And he [David] delivered them [the seven children] into 
the hands of the Gibeonites, and they hanged them in the 
hill before the Lord . . . . And after that God was en¬ 
treated for the land.” 


THE GOD OF THE BIBLE. 


715 


It seems tliat, at the time in question, God was afflict¬ 
ing the land with a fearful famine, and that, when inquired 
of concerning this matter, he “ answered, It is for Saul, 
and for his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites.” 
He also seems to have given David to understand that, 
whatever sacrifices the Gibeonites might demand, in satis¬ 
faction of the wrongs their ancestors had suffered at the 
hands of Saul, must be offered before the famine would be 
removed. “Wherefore David said unto the Gibeonites, 
What shall I do for you ? and wherewith shall I make the 
atonement [required by the Lord, but left by him to be 
determined by the Gibeonites], that [by turning away 
God’s wrath] ye may bless the inheritance of the Lord ? 
And the Gibeonites said unto him, . . . Let seven men of 
his sons be delivered unto us, and we will hang them up 
unto the Lord in Gibeah of Saul, whom the Lord did 
choose. And the king said, I will give them ” (2 Sam. 
xxi, 3-6). 

From the tenth verse, we learn that the friends of these 
murdered children were not permitted to take their dead 
bodies down for burial, since the mother of two of them, 
to keep the birds and the beasts of prey from feeding upon 
the lifeless bodies of her poor loved little ones, lay upon 
the hard rock near them, and guarded them, day and night, 
from the time of barley harvest, when they were so foully 
murdered, until the rains of autumn began to fall upon 
them. Then nothing remained of them but the bones, 
which had fallen down, and lay scattered upon the ground 
just as they fell. And the God that you worship positively 
demanded this horrible sacrifice before he would relieve 
the land from the long and terrible famine with which he 
was afflicting it. So soon as the sacrifice was offered, how¬ 
ever, he very graciously caused the famine to cease. The 
other five children, being full orphans, had no fond mother 
to thus guard their decaying bodies. Their stepfather, 
David, was in his gorgeous harem, reveling with his many 
wives and concubines, while the bodies of these poor mur- 


716 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


dered orphans, whose protector he should have been, were 
thus decaying in the sun. 

Picture to yourself the unutterable agony of that loving 
mother as she keeps her lone vigils, day and night, upon 
the cold, hard rock, for long weary months, while the 
bodies of her poor murdered children are slowly dropping 
to pieces before her face. Picture to yourself your own 
sweet and beloved children, thus foully murdered for no 
offense of their own, and thus denied the last sad rite of 
burial. Picture yourself as thus guarding their dead 
bodies, day and night, for long weary months. Picture 
yourself as gazing, day after day, upon their swollen and 
livid faces, while every trace of resemblance to their former 
selves slowly fades from their ghastly features—while the 
flesh slowly drops from their bones—while their bones 
slowly fall asunder and drop upon the ground. Yes, pic¬ 
ture to yourselves all these things, and then, if you feel 
like doing so break forth, as you now often do, in hallelu¬ 
jahs to the unutterably hideous monster that caused them 
all to be done. In the name of humanity, however, do not 
ask me to join you in orgies so unspeakably horrible as 
such shoutings, under such circumstances, would certainly 
be. I would rather praise the devil. 

And now, in all candor, please answer : Have I not 
fully demonstrated that this God—this blood-blackened 
monster of the Bible—is simply a hideous invention with 
which the priests frighten the people, and not the sublime 
and illimitable power that rules the universe ? 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


717 


LECTURE NINETEENTH. 

THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 

In former lectures, the fact has been fully shown that 
all the gods of the world were originally assumed or in¬ 
vented simply to account for the various phenomena of 
nature, the real causes of which, primitive men, in their 
extreme ignorance, could neither perceive nor understand. 
After having been thus assumed or invented, however, all 
of these gods were, as a matter of course, invisible, in¬ 
tangible, inapproachable, and incomprehensible. Beings 
so mighty as the imaginary gods were supposed to be, and 
yet so mysterious, were, naturally enough; regarded by 
men with intense awe mingled with a great but undefinable 
fear. And yet, men, not being able to communicate, in 
any reliable way, with these gods, were constantly in doubt 
as to the surest method of winning their favor, or of 
avoiding the often dire effects of their almost incessant 
anger. 

In order, therefore, to remedy this unpleasant condi¬ 
tion of affairs, men attempted, in various ways, to come 
into more direct and reliable communication with the 
gods. By ascending high mountains, some attempted to 
reach heaven, the supposed dwelling-place of the gods; 
and, if we are to believe the Bible and other so-called 
sacred books, many of them succeeded in this attempt, or, at 
least, succeeded in getting within communicating distance 
of heaven. Moses is said to have accomplished this feat 
upon Mount Sinai. The great mass of mankind, however, 


718 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


living, as they did, in valleys or on plains, were unable to 
reach heaven in this way, or even to approach within hail¬ 
ing distance of it. Some of these lowlanders are said to 
have attempted to reach it by means of a very high tower, 
and to have been prevented from succeeding in this laud¬ 
able enterprise, by the ungenerous interference of the 
jealous and alarmed gods themselves, who unanimously 
agreed to never permit mortals, in this manner, to invade 
the celestial dominions. 

To the great mass of mankind, therefore, there re¬ 
mained only two methods by which the desired communi¬ 
cations could possibly be carried on. One of these 
methods was to invent a third order of beings with wings, 
whose special business it should be to fly back and forth 
between earth and heaven, and to bear messages in both 
directions. The other method was to induce the gods 
themselves to descend to the earth, and to thus put them¬ 
selves within the reach of men. In almost every country 
of the world, both of these methods came into common 
use, and, in most countries, they are in common use to¬ 
day. From the nature of their employment, the winged 
beings were called angels or inferior gods. 

Having resolved to bring the gods to the earth, men 
resorted to various methods by which to accomplish this 
object. In the primitive condition of society that then 
prevailed, in nearly all countries, the obtaining of food 
was the one great object of life. Like hungry beasts, 
birds, etc., of all kinds, hungry men would do more for 
food than for anything else. Knowing this fact, and sup¬ 
posing that, in this respect, the gods were like themselves, 
most men were accustomed to lay baits for the gods, or to 
allure them down with various kinds of food. Flesh, being 
the principal article of food of the people of those times, 
was generally used for god-bait, and this, often seasoned 
with rich spices and fragrant herbs, was usually burnt, in 
order that its odors, ascending to heaven, might reach the 
gods and attract them to the spot whence those odors 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


719 


came. This method of god-baiting was generally, and, in 
some countries, still is, a very successful one. In the 
earlier part of their respective careers, when, like their 
worshipers, they were quite gross in their habits, caring 
very little for anything except food and sexual enjoyments, 
all the gods of any note in the whole world, your old 
Jewish God not excepted, were wont to be successfully 
allured to earth by means of these baits. 

When, however, men became somewhat advanced in 
civilization—when, having at all times an abundance drawn 
from agricultural sources, they ceased to regard food alone 
as the principal thing to be desired and sought after— 
when they themselves began to place a higher value upon 
wealth, splendor, public honors, etc., than they placed 
upon mere articles of food, they, naturally enough, sup¬ 
posed that the gods had undergone a similar change of 
taste in regard to these things. They therefore gradually 
ceased to lay meat-baits for the gods, and began, just as 
successfully, to allure them down by erecting for them 
gorgeous god-liouses, making them valuable presents , and 
bestowing upon them the most extravagant public honors. 
By these means, all the gods that have survived the god- 
destroying light of modern science are still wont to be suc¬ 
cessfully lured down. 

Sometimes the gods were called down only temporarily, 
and were permitted to return to heaven as soon as the 
business was transacted for which the call had been made. 
At other times, they were induced to remain, for years at 
a time, among their respective sets of worshipers. By the 
promise of an abundance of roast beef and other choice 
articles of food, almost any of them could be induced to 
thus remain upon earth. During this, their sublunary 
sojourn among men, some of these gods took up their 
abodes in living animals, such as the bull, the ape, the ele¬ 
phant, etc.; others took up their abodes in living men; 
and others still, in images of wood, stone, metal, etc.; or 
in boxes, small rooms, etc., prepared specially for their 


720 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


habitations. For a long time the old God of the Hebrews, 
whom, under a greatly modified form, you now worship, 
dwelt thus in a wooden box about forty-eight inches in 
length, thirty inches in width, and thirty inches in height. 
In this little box, he was easily carried about by his cap- 
tors in all their journeyings, and was always on hand 
whenever he was wanted, and, frequently, when he was 
not wanted. Afterwards, when his captors ceased to live 
a nomadic life, they prepared, for his accommodation, a 
small prison, called the most holy place, in the temple, 
near the altar or kitchen fire-place of the temple, where, 
without being exposed to the gaze of vulgar eyes, he might 
regale himself upon the savory odors of beef, mutton, etc., 
which were almost constantly kept roasting upon this 
altar, for his especial benefit. 

In most of the civilized countries of the world, men 
have now pretty generally abandoned this vulgar and ex¬ 
pensive custom of regaling their gluttonous gods upon 
roast meats and other table luxuries. These mysterious 
gods, however, are supposed still to take up their abodes 
in the houses erected for their use, just as martins, pigeons, 
and many other kinds of birds are wont to take up their 
abodes in the boxes and little houses prepared for their 
use. Our own country is full of God-houses , called churches, 
cathedrals , etc., which are supposed to be thus occupied. 

In all of these cases, however, the gods proved more or 
less unsatisfactory. None but priests could ever deal with 
them, and even the priests frequently failed to correctly 
comprehend tbeir natures, their wishes, etc. Indeed, so 
capricious and so ill-natured were most of these gods, 
whether free or captured, that they could not be kept, 
much of the time, in anything like a good humor, tfven by 
their own chosen priests who offered to them daily many 
tons of roast beef and other good things furnished by the 
poor overtaxed people. The God of the Hebrews, in par¬ 
ticular, although the most prodigious consumer of beef on 
record, was almost constantly in a towering rage about one 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


721 


trivial thing or another. Indeed, so far from seeming to 
be in sympathy with the human race, the gods generally 
seemed to be enemies to mankind—even to those people 
who most devoutly worshiped them, and most bountifully 
fed them. Although, for the sake of the abundant supplies 
of roast beef and other good things that were furnished 
them, and of which they were so excessively fond, they 
'would consent to dwell thus among men; yet, between 
themselves and men, there were no kindred ties, no com¬ 
mon sympathies. Not knowing how to approach them in 
an acceptable manner, men, although striving to please 
them, were almost constantly doing something to offend 
them. When offended, too, these gods were wont to vent 
their unreasonable wrath indiscriminately upon the in¬ 
nocent and the guilty. This fact has been fully shown in 
preceding lectures. 

Under such circumstances, men, naturally enough, be¬ 
gan to feel the need of mediators —of persons related by 
kindred ties and common sympathies , both to the gods and to 
themselves —of persons who could understand and pity the 
many w T ants and infirmities of men, and, at the same time, 
know how to approach the gods , at all times, in an accept¬ 
able manner. An order or race of beings half god and half 
man , if they could only be produced, would be the very 
things desired. And v hy could they not be produced ? 
Why could not the gods be induced to cohabit with the 
daughters of men and thus produce these much-to-be-de¬ 
sired beings ? The conception of such an idea was per¬ 
fectly natural; and when men had once conceived it, they 
began to really hope that such cohabitation would actually 
take place. By having beautiful virgins sleep almost 
nightly in the temples, and by various other expedients, 
they began to tempt or encourage the gods to condescend 
to indulge in this form of cohabitation. Throughout al¬ 
most every land, too, many virgins, on their own responsi¬ 
bility, began to offer the gods a chance to beget themselves 
some hybrid or half-breed offspring, whenever their god- 


722 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


ships might desire to do so. Under all of these circum¬ 
stances, it would have been strange indeed if no offspring 
of the desired cross had been obtained. Men began also to 
conceive ideals of what kind of beings ought to result from 
this cross, should it ever be successfully effected. Various 
gods were consulted upon the subject; and, through their 
priests and their prophets, they expressed their intention, 
on some suitable occasion in the indefinite future, to beget 
themselves a son or two each—they never would consent 
to beget daughters—upon virgin human mothers. 

The poets of various countries, taking up these vague 
but popular predictions, were wont to sing of the glorious 
time coming, when the son of a god should be born unto 
their own respective nations. The people, too, were on 
the lookout for the coming of such a personage ; each na¬ 
tion, of course, expecting him to appear, as predicted by 
their own prophets, among themselves, and not among the 
people of any other nation. When, therefore, any great 
hero, statesman, philosopher, or magician arose in any 
country, he was sure to be fixed upon by many of his most 
ignorant and most impatiently awaiting countrymen as the 
son of a god. This was especially the case with eminent 
men who chanced to have been born, in families of respect¬ 
ability, to unmarried women. Indeed, it was generally 
assumed that the gods were all too fastidious to condescend 
to cohabit with any but virgins of the very first class. With 
these virgins, however, they finally became so intimate, 
and their sons by these virgins became so common, that, in 
some countries, laws were enacted forbidding any unmar¬ 
ried woman who chanced to become a mother, to claim 
that her child was the offspring of a god. 

As might have been expected, the great facilities which, 
as we have already seen, were offered to the gods for be¬ 
getting offspring upon human mothers, their hybrid sons 
—they either could not or would not beget daughters— 
became quite numerous, in nearly all countries, and, by 
their rivalry, became the source of much dissension and 



THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR 


72 3 


bloodshed. None of them, however, were ever accepted 
as genuine demi-gods by the intelligent portion of the 
people among whom they severally made their appearance. 
Neither were any of them ever accepted as genuine demi¬ 
gods by their own nearest friends and neighbors. These 
parties, who, of all the people, had the best opportunities 
to ascertain the facts in the case, were generally as incred¬ 
ulous in regard to the divine paternity of any one of these 
pretended demi-gods as we would now be in regard to that 
of a bastard child borne by some young woman of our own 
neighborhood, should he claim, or should his mother, for 
him, claim that he was the son of a god. 

The first followers of all these pretended demi-gods 
were generally confined to the ignorant vagrant class,, 
who, with equal readiness, would have followed any other 
pretender, had he offered them a prospect of living with¬ 
out honest labor. With such a following, many of these 
so-called sons of gods became disturbers of the peace, and 
more than a dozen of them in all, who had succeeded in 
acquiring a dangerous influence, were executed as crimi¬ 
nals. Whenever any one of them was thus executed, his 
followers, of course, were placed under the necessity of 
either admitting that he was an impostor, a mere man, un¬ 
able to save his own life, and that themselves were the 
dupes of an impostor, or of setting up the claim that his. 
death, in this very manner, was an essential part of his 
own mysterious plan of saving the human race, or at least 
a certain elect portion of them, from the fearful wrath of 
the old god, his putative sire. Such a claim has been set 
up for their deceased leader, by the respective sets of fol¬ 
lowers of over a dozen executed personages. Of these so- 
called saviors, I have chosen Jesus as the subject of this,, 
and the next lecture. I give this preference to Jesus, not 
because I regard his claims to deityship as any stronger,, 
or as any better established, than are those of Chrishna,, 
Prometheus, and others, but simply because he is one, dt 
the adopted deities of my own country. 


724 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


According to all the so-called orthodox teachings on the 
subject, Jesus was not only the son of the old God of the 
Hebreivs, but was, also, at the same time, that identical old 
God himself. According to these teachings, he must, of 
necessity, have been, at the same time, his own father, and 
his own son. Of equal necessity, he must also have been 
two distinct individuals, and, at the same time, only one 
individual. Besides these monstrous absurdities and ut¬ 
ter impossibilities, he must, also, of equal necessity, have 
been the maker, if not the father, of his own mother, and, 
indeed, of all his ancestors. Before considering him in 
these various relations and conditions, I wish to consider 
what was his mission upon earth. As all Christians will 
readily admit, this mission was the redemption of man¬ 
kind, or at least the elect of them, from the fatal effects of 
what is popularly called the fall of man, and the restora¬ 
tion of them to the lost favor of God. 

According to the teachings of the Bible, our first par¬ 
ents, Adam and Eve, were, originally, two naked savages, 
so inconceivably ignorant that they did not even know that 
they were naked ; and, in this disgustingly degraded con¬ 
dition—in this, his own likeness and image—God intended 
that they should always remain. The serpent, however, 
or, as Dr. Clarke and some others have it, the ape, or, as 
still others have it, the devil—whatever that may have 
been—being a better friend to them than was their Maker, 
persuaded them to partake of that most necessary of all 
fruits, the fruit of the tree of knowledge. They did par¬ 
take freely of that wonderful fruit, and yet, so far from 
dying on that very day, as God, to intimidate them, had 
declared that they certainly should, they lived right on for 
nearly a thousand more years, and then died, not from the 
effects of eating the fruit in question, but from extreme 
old age. They fell, however, from this their Godlike con¬ 
dition of ignorance and nakedness, to a condition that 
rendered possible, and even inevitable, the light, the knowl¬ 
edge, and the civilization of the present time. 



THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


725 


. By this fearful fall, as it is strangely called, brought 
about by a serpent, or some other creature, which God 
himself had made, and which he had declared to be “ very 
good,” men lost the favor of God, became the objects of 
his most fearful wrath, the children of the devil, and the 
heirs of a never-ending hell. To redeem them, or, as I 
would prefer to express it, to rob them of the effects of 
this falsely so-called fall, to restore or reduce them to their 
original Godlike condition of ignorance and nakedness, 
was the mission of Jesus ; and bravely did he labor to ac¬ 
complish that mission. He strictly forbade his followers 
to sow, to reap, to make clothing, to build houses, or to 
take any thought whatever for the morrow, as to what they 
should eat, what they should drink, or wherewithal they 
should be clothed. He made it a damnable sin to lay up 
wealth, or even to retain that which might be obtained 
through inheritance. He discouraged industry of all kinds, 
and taught his followers to depend for subsistence upon 
the spontaneous productions of nature, which, as he as¬ 
sured them, and as he seemed himself to fully believe, 
God would never fail to abundantly supply. He himself 
strolled about the country in a filthy condition, without 
any certain means of support, wearing only such old gar¬ 
ments as chanced to be thrown by the people to him as to 
any other tramp. He ate with unwashed hands, slept out 
of doors, and associated, on terms of perfect equality, with 
the very dregs of society. Sometimes he was almost 
starved—compelled to steal grain in the fields and eat it 
raw. Sometimes he grew so hungry that he became angry 
and cursed in a very foolish manner; cursed trees for not 
bearing fruit in wdnter for his benefit and that of other 
tramps. At other times, when he chanced to have an 
abundance of food given him, by his disgusting intemper¬ 
ance in eating and drinking, he acquired the decidedly 
unenviable distinction of being a “glutton and a wine- 
bibber.” 


726 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


In liis principles, lie was, to the fullest extent of the 
term, a communist He would not himself possess any in¬ 
dividual property of any kind, and he would not permit 
any of his followers to possess any such property. All 
must be in common. Indeed, to such an extent did he carry 
his communistic principles, that he would not himself ac¬ 
knowledge, and would not suffer any of his followers to 
acknowledge, even an individual father or any other indi¬ 
vidual relationship. No being that could not be recognized 
as common , the communistic father of them all , was permitted 
io be recognized as the father of any of them. So of the 
women, who were always regarded merely as a species of 
property; no individual was permitted to have the exclusive 
use or ownership of any of these. Like all other things, they 
belonged in common to the entire community , to “the king¬ 
dom of Godf which was simply the church or the com¬ 
mune, and in which Jesus declared that “ they neither 
marry nor are given in marriage .” So long as they were 
permitted to be so, his followers were full communists . 
"When anyone joined them, he had to sell all his “ posses¬ 
sions and goods,” and place the proceeds in the common 
treasury of the community. “ They liad«?£ things common .” 
In short, with all his good qualities, and I cheerfully admit 
that he possessed many of these, the life of Jesus was 
what would now probably be called the life of a communistic 
vagrant or tramp; and had his teachings and his example 
been fully carried out, mankind would, indeed, have been 
to-day fully restored to the God-like condition in which 
-our first parents were before their memorable fall. We 
would all have been naked savages, but this fact would 
have been no drawback to our perfect happiness, since we 
would have been too ignorant to know that we were in 
that condition. The ignorance and barbarism that char¬ 
acterized what are known as the dark ages were the 
legitimate results of the partial carrying out by the people 
of the doctrines and the example of this famous commun¬ 
istic fanatic, Jesus. Indeed, all the light and knowledge 



THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


727 

that constitute the civilization of the present time is due 
entirely to that which you stigmatize as Infidelity . 

From all of this, it is clear that the Redeemership of 
Jesus depends upon the literal truthfulness of the entire 
absurd and incredible story of the creation. If there 
never was any such creation as that story describes; if 
there never were any such flat and stationary earth, solid 
sky or firmament, garden of Eden, tree of knowledge, 
mud-made man, bone-made woman, walking and talking 
serpent, etc., then, of necessity, there never could have 
been any such fall of man as is recorded in this story; 
and, if there never was auy such fall, then, of equal neces¬ 
sity, there never could have been any redemption from the 
effects of such fall, or any such Redeemer as Jesus is 
represented as having been. You are compelled either to 
swallow the whole absurd story of the creation, in its 
strictly literal sense, or to admit that the Christian Relig¬ 
ion is a monstrous imposition. I defy any escape from 
this conclusion, so embarrassing to the champions of that 
religion. When, therefore, in preceding lectures, I fully 
proved the entire story of the creation to be utterly false, 
I also, at the same time, virtually proved that, at best, the 
entire Christian Religion is founded upon an absurd pagan 
fable. 

If, however, in order to save this religion, so profitable 
to our priests, we admit, as we certainly must, that the 
whole story of the creation is literally true; if we admit 
that there actually were such a flat and stationary earth, 
such a solid sky or firmament, such a tree of knowledge, 
such a mud-made man, such a bone-made woman, such a 
walking and talking serpent, such a fall of man, etc., then 
we have before us the rather remarkable case of an omnis¬ 
cient God, with a full foreknowledge of exactly what they 
would severally do and severally be, making a man, a 
woman, and a serpent, and pronouncing them “very good,” 
and yet, at the same time, predetermining to go into an 
uncontrollable rage with them, and to eternally damn 


728 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


them and all their posterity, for doing and for being just 
what he himself predetermined that they inevitably should 
do and should be. 

Had it been possible for Adam, Eve, and the serpent to 
fail doing exactly what God foresaw that they would do, 
or to fail being exactly what he foresaw that they would 
be, then they probably would have thus failed. In that 
case, however, God would not have really foreseen any¬ 
thing at all concerning them. That which he thought he 
foresaw would never have come to pass, and then, so far 
from proving to be omniscient, he would have proved to 
be a mere guesser at future events, and a very poor ^uesser 
at that. 

In order to actually foresee any future event, God must, 
of necessity, render it utterly impossible for that event not 
to occur. Of course, then, he himself must have prede¬ 
termined that Adam, Eve, and the serpent inevitably should 
commit whatever sins and other acts he foresaw that they 
certainly would commit. At any rate, the Bible clearly 
teaches that, before the foundation of the world—before any¬ 
body but himself could have had anything to do in planning 
the future—God certainly did foresee, and certainly did. 
predetermine, exactly who should be righteous and who 
should be unrighteous, who should be saved and who 
should be damned. Every man’s character, then, as well 
as his final destiny, being thus, from all eternity, unalter¬ 
ably fixed, for him, by God himself, it evidently becomes 
utterly impossible for any man to avoid either the char¬ 
acter or the final destiny which were thus predetermined 
for him, and for which alone he was created. God cannot 
possibly foresee anything except what is to be; and “wliat 
is to be will be.” 

The Bible also teaches, as do all orthodox Christians, 
that, before the foundation of the world, God predeter¬ 
mined, not only that Jesus should be, but also that he 
should be the Redeemer of mankind, or, at least, of so 
many of them as were pre-elected to salvation. In order, 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


729 


however, to thus predetermine this Redeemersliip of Jesus, 
it was absolutely necessary for God to also predetermine 
that lost condition of mankind which would render such a 
Redeemer necessary, and from which Jesus should redeem 
them. Without forseeing such a condition , God could not 
possibly have foreseen the need of a Redeemer , and, con¬ 
sequently, would not have predetermined to provide such 
a Redeemer. As I have already said, however, in order to 
foresee such a condition , God himself must, of necessity, 
have predetermined for men that very condition. I defy any 
escape from these conclusions. 

When, therefore, in the carrying out of his programme, 
God himself had caused men to fall, he promptly began to 
damn them for having fallen. All of this, of course, was 
just as he had foreseen that it would be, and just as he had 
predetermined that it should be. For about four thousand 
years, according to the chronology of the Bible, he seems 
to have devoted himself almost exclusively to the divine 
and delightful work of making men, and then killing and 
damning them. After having had millions of cattle, sheep, 
and goats butchered and roasted before him, to appease 
his wrath and gratify his olfactories—after having had 
whole nations of men, women, and children butchered— 
and some of them placed as roasts upon his own table, for 
being just what he himself had made them ; after having, 
for the same reason, filled the vast, the indescribably hor¬ 
rible caverns of hell with billions upon billions of his own 
poor helpless creatures whom, before the foundation of 
the world, he had predetermined to torment for ever and 
ever in the fearful flames of fire and brimstone, he pro¬ 
ceeded, according to his programme, to beget himself a 
son to act as the Redeemer of such individuals of the 
human race as were not already damned and as were not, 
from all eternity, preordained to damnation—of such indi¬ 
viduals, in short, as had been eternally pre-elected to sal¬ 
vation, and who, consequently, did not need any such Re¬ 
deemer. Having successfully accomplished the long-pre- 


730 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


meditated feat of begetting himself a son upon a poor un¬ 
married woman, he proposed that, if men would commit 
the horrible crime of murdering this inoffensive son, he 
would take them back into his favor, and would not any 
more punish them, or, at least, the elect of them, with 
eternal damnation, for the little fruit that Adam and Eve 
had eaten some forty centuries before. Having unalter¬ 
ably predetermined that men should murder his supposed 
son, he, of course, so controlled events that they did mur¬ 
der him. Then, as a reward for the commission of this 
atrocious crime, he made the murderers, or, at least, the 
elect of them, heirs of salvation, co-heirs with his own 
son whom they had murdered, but who, it seems, did not 
long remain murdered. Why God could not forgive men 
their sins and save them from salvation just as well with¬ 
out this murder as he could with it, I am not able to say. 
To me, this is one of the many mysteries of godliness. 
Ask any orthodox minister of the gospel, however, and he 
will doubtless explain the whole matter to your entire sat¬ 
isfaction. I could have done this when I was a lad of 
fourteen years. And now show me, if you can, in all 
pagandom, a doctrine more absurd or more atrocious than 
is this doctrine of the fall of man and the atonement for 
that fall. What doctrine could possibly exhibit God’s 
character in a worse light ? 

In Gen. iii, 11, we read : “ Who told thee that thou wast 
naked ? Hast thou eaten of the tree whereof I commanded 
thee that thou shouldst not eat? ” From this, it is clear 
that God did not intend that men should ever possess suf¬ 
ficient intelligence even to know that they were naked. 
And has he, since then, undergone any change for the 
better, and become a friend to human knowledge? If not, 
is he not, of necessity, still an enemy to such knowledge ? 
And would not the redemption provided for us by such a 
God very naturally be a redemption or return from the 
light and knowledge that resulted from the fall, to the in¬ 
conceivable darkness and ignorance of our paradisaical 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


731 


state ? Does not to redeem mean simply to purchase a 
return or a restoration? Could a redemption from the 
effects—the light and the knowledge of the world—consist 
in anything else than a return or restoration to the igno¬ 
rance that preceded the fall ? 

In Gen. iii, 22-23, the ‘‘Lord God” or chief God says 
to the other Gods : “ Behold, the man is become as one of 
us, to know good and evil: and now lest he put forth his 
hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live 
forever: therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from 
the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was 
taken.” These passages, which constitute positive proof 
of the former existence of a plurality of Gods, show con¬ 
clusively why it w r as that God wished to keep men forever 
in the profoundest depths of ignorance. He perceived that 
a very little knowledge rendered men like the Gods, and that 
much knowledge would render them superior to the Gods . 
He therefore feared human intelligence, as well he might, 
and would doubtless rejoice, even now, to see men re¬ 
deemed from that intelligence so dangerous to himself. So 
long as intelligence prevails among men, he can never feel 
sure that his throne will not be overturned. At any rate, 
as every intelligent minister of the gospel knows, the 
most ignorant of the people are the ones upon whom he 
always has depended for his most devout worshipers. 
The comparatively few intelligent men who have ever 
served him have almost invariably served for worldly gain. 
You should not, therefore, blindly take it for granted 
that the so-called redemption provided for us by this in¬ 
veterate foe to human intelligence is intended to work 
for our good. 

And now I wish to consider in what sense Jesus was 
the son of God. If in a figurative sense only, he bore this 
relationship to God, then he was only one of many such 
sons of God, and must, of necessity, like each of the 
others, have had a human father. If, on the other hand, 
he was literally the son of God, then, of necessity, God 


732 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


must, in a strictly literal sense, have actually begotten liim, 
just as a man begets a child, or a horse begets a colt. We 
will examine these two senses separately. 

“ And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on 
the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, 
that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they 
were fair; and they took them wives of all which they 
chose ” (Gen. vi, 1, 2). “ Now there was a day when the 

sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord ” 
(Job. i, 6). “ But a^ many as received him, to them gave 

he power to become the sons of God ” (John i, 12). 
“ Which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, 
which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God ” 
(Luke iii, 38). Erom these, and a vast number of other 
similar passages, we learn that God had many sons. But 
in what sense were they his sons? Few, if any, of the 
champions of the Bible will claim that, in a literal sense, 
any of these parties were the sons of God. They were 
evidently mere men, all of whom, except Adam, had 
human fathers. They were evidently the sons of God 
only by adoption or election. 

And is this the only sense in which Jesus was the son 
of God? That it is, clearly appears from many passages 
in the New Testament. In Matt, xxiii, 9, Jesus says: 
“ And call no man your father upon the earth : for one is 
your Father which is in heaven.” In order to understand 
this language correctly, you must take into consideration 
the important fact that it was spoken by one who was so 
radical in his communistic principles that he would not 
himself possess, and would not permit any of his fol¬ 
lowers to possess, anything whatever that could not be 
equally possessed by all the balance of the community. 
When you take this fact into consideration, and when you 
reflect that “ no man . . . upon the earth ” could be the 
common or commune father of the whole community, you 
can correctly understand why it was that Jesus himself 
never acknowledged his own father, and why it was that; 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


733 


he so strictly required all of his followers to utterly ignore 
their own respective fathers. In the commune of which 
he was the founder, “ they had dll things common ,” and 
nothing , not even one’s relationship to his oivn individual 
parents , could be received into that commune , unless it 
could be made thus common to the whole community. In 
short, Jesus utterly abolished, or rather attempted to 
utterly abolish, the individual family , which he seems to 
have regarded as the germ, the nucleus, or the embryo of 
all clannism and sectarianism ; of all anti-communism in 
general. 

In ignoring his own earthly father, who could never 
have been the common or commune father of the whole com¬ 
munity, and in acknowledging only his Heavenly Father, 
who could be the common or commune Father of all that 
saw fit to recognize him as such, Jesus did no more than he 
strictly commanded all other men to do, in respect to their 
own respective earthly fathers, and their common or com¬ 
mune Heavenly Father. For himself he claimed no nearer 
relationship to God than he required all of his followers 
to claim for themselves. As brethren, he and they were 
all to claim one common father. He did not pretend to 
deny that he himself and every other man had an earthly 
or individual father; but he regarded, and wished all 
others to regard, the tie that binds a man to his earthly 
father as no tie at all when compared with the tie that 
binds him to his Heavenly Father—to the Great Com¬ 
mune Father of all men. 

In his own case, too, Jesus had another very excellent 
reason for not acknowledging an earthly or individual 
father. Having been born of an unmarried woman, he 
probably did not know who was his earthly father; and, if 
lie did know, that knowledge was evidently a kind of 
family secret. Besides this, that father had entirely ig¬ 
nored any relationship to him, had neglected to support 
and educate him, and had left his mother to bear disgrace 
alone, or to escape it, if she could, by setting up the old 


734 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


plea, by which many an unfortunate young woman before 
her had attempted to escape similar disgrace, that her 
child was the son of a God, and that she was still a virgin. 
Whether his mother did, or did not, ever set up for him 
any such claim, is a matter which we now have no means 
of determining. If she did, then it was but natural that, 
for her sake as well as for his own, he should do nothing to 
weaken the force of that claim. 

Be all these things as they may, however, it is an un¬ 
deniable fact that Jesus just as studiously avoided acknowl¬ 
edging an earthly mother , as he did acknowledging an 
earthly father; and, since there was then no deity, acknowl¬ 
edged by the Jews, that could be claimed as the common 
or commune mother of all men, he never recognized, and 
never required his followers to recognize, any mother at 
all. Under the circumstances, motherhood was something 
that could not enter, as an acknowledged element, into his 
perfect commune. In pursuance of his extreme commun¬ 
istic principles, therefore, he never did acknowledge that 
he was the son of Mary or of any other woman. When he 
addressed Mary at all, he simply called her “ woman.” 
He never did call her mother. And he acted thus toward 
her, not because he doubted that she was his mother, but 
simply because she could not be equally the common 
mother of his whole commune, of the whold ideal “ king¬ 
dom of heaven,” which he was laboring to establish on 
earth, and in which none of the non-commune kindred 
ties of this world were known; in which “ they had all 
things common ;” in which they neither married nor gave 
in marriage; in which no monopoly, no exclusive individ¬ 
ual possession, not even that of a mother, was ever to be 
known; in which, consequently, few men would either 
know or care who might be their respective earthly or in¬ 
dividual parents—especially their fathers—but in which all 
would be regarded as equally the children of one great, 
Common or Commune Father in Heaven. 

“ When one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


735 


tliy brethren stand without desiring to speak with thee. 
But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is 
my mother ? and who are my brethren ? And he stretched 
forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my 
mother and my brethren: for whosoever shall do the will 
of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, 
and sister, and mother ” (Matt, xii, 47-50). On this, and 
on every other occasion, Jesus utterly ignored all kindred 
ties according to the flesh. This he did, not because he 
had no such ties, but because he wished to lose sight of 
these individual or accidental, these non-commune ties, in 
what he regarded as the infinitely higher and stronger tie 
that bound him to God, the great Commune Father of all 
men, and to God’s people, the church or great commune. 
In the same sense in which he denied his mother and his 
brethren, he denied his father, and in no other sense. 

Had he been willing, under any circumstances, to ac¬ 
knowledge a kindred tie of an individual or non-commune 
character, he surely would at last have acknowledged his 
poor mother as she stood weeping at the foot of the cross 
upon wdiich he was dying. Even then, however, true in 
death to the great communistic ideal to which he had de¬ 
voted his life, he still refused to acknowledge any such tie. 
In that last awful hour, he still addressed her, not by the 
endearing term mother, which she doubtless longed to hear 
one time from his lips, but by the harsh term “ woman,” 
and called her the mother of another man to whom, by the 
ties of blood, she was in no way related. Referring her to 
that other man, he simply said : “ Woman, behold thy 

son. 

If, then, the fact that he never directly acknowledged 
an earthly father be taken as proof that he never had any 
such father, is not the fact that he never directly acknowl¬ 
edged an earthly mother bound to be taken as equally con¬ 
clusive proof that he never had any such mother ? In¬ 
deed, does not his non-acknowledgment constitute a far 
stronger proof of non-relationship, in the case of the 


736 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


mother, than it does in the case of the father? To his 
father, who had been his mother’s seducer, or who, at 
least, had never been her husband, and who had never ac¬ 
knowledged him, or in any way performed a father’s duty 
toward him, he was bound by no ties of love, duty, or 
gratitude. There were no reasons why he should ac¬ 
knowledge such a father. Indeed, there were the very 
best of reasons why he should remain, just as he did re¬ 
main, entirely silent in regard to that particular ancestor. 
Under such circumstances, then, the mere fact of his failure 
to ever mention his human father does not constitute any 
proof at all that he never had any such father. In regard to 
his mother, however, or his supposed mother, the case was 
very different. To her, he was bound by the strongest ties 
of love, duty, and gratitude. She had faithfully stood by 
him in all his sorrows. If, then, she was his mother, why 
did he never acknowledge her as such ? Except his extreme 
communistic principles, which the champions of the Bible 
now generally deny that he ever possessed, what reasons 
were there why he should so constantly refuse to acknowl¬ 
edge such a mother, if, indeed, she was his mother ? Does 
not the fact, then, of his constant and positive refusal, 
under such circumstances, to acknowledge such a mother 
constitute far stronger proof that he never had any such 
mother, than has ever been adduced to prove that he 
never had any human father ? 

Be all these things as they may, Aowever, it is an un¬ 
deniable fact that he never spoke of himself as anything 
else than a human being. On all occasions, he called him¬ 
self the “ Son of Man” He never called himself the Son 
of God , and positively disclaimed the possession of 
any power not possessed in an equal degree by other men. 
In John xiv, 12, he says : “ Verily, verily, I say unto you, 

He that believetli on me, the works that I do shall lie do 
also; and greater works than these shall lie do.” Since, 
+hen, he never claimed to be the Son of God, in anything 
like a literal sense, and since his works were not superior 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


737 


—were not equal, in fact, to the works of men—what proofs 
have we that he was anything more than a man ? If there 
be any such proofs, will my opponents please name them ? 

When, with reference to himself, he spoke of God, he 
constantly used the expression, “my Father.” When, 
however, with reference to his disciples and others, he 
spoke of God in exactly the same sense, he just as con¬ 
stantly used the expression, “ your Father.” In John xx, 
17, he says : “ Touch me not: for I am not yet ascended 

to my Father : but go to my brethren, and say unto them, 
I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God 
and your God.” Here the expressions, “ your Father ” and 
“ your God,” being used in exactly the same sense as are the 
expressions, “my Father” and “my God,” must, of neces¬ 
sity, express exactly the same relationship to God. In 
whatever sense, then, Jesus was the Son of God, his 
brethren were also the Sons of God. And since his rela¬ 
tion to God was thus exactly the same as was theirs, his 
relation to man must, of necessity, have also been exactly 
the same as was theirs. If, then, they were mere men, 
made Sons of God by adoption, could he have been any 
more than a mere man, made a Son of God in the same 
manner? That he was merely a very holy man, made a 
Son of God thus by adoption, was certainly the view of 
the matter held by a large portion, if not a majority, of the 
Christians of the first three centuries. 

The fact that Jesus is sometimes spoken of as the “ only 
begotten ” son of God proves nothing at all in regard to his 
own real paternity, or in regard to that of any other per¬ 
son. As every Bible critic knows, the expression, “ only 
begotten,” is generally, if not always, used, in the Bible, 
simply to express the most dearly beloved. A man, with 
a dozen sons, might have, and generally did have, one 
“ only begotten ” or most dearly beloved son. The case 
was exactly the same, too, when all the sons chanced to be 
sons only by adoption. Although the foster-father had 
not really begotten any of them, nevertheless the one of 


738 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


them that he most dearly loved was still spoken of as liis 
“ only begotten son ”—as one whom he loved as if he had 
begotten him, and him alone. Although Abraham had 
certainly begotten another son, Islimael, yet Isaac is con¬ 
stantly spoken of as that old patriarch’s “ only begotten 
son,” as one that he loved as if he had never begotten any 
other. And thus it was with Jesus. He was simply the 
most dearly beloved of all of God’s many adopted sons. 
His literal relationship to God was precisely the same as 
was that of his brethren, God’s other adopted sons. 

It was not until the year 325, at the first council of 
Nice, that the honor (?) of being literally the Son of God 
was definitely conferred upon Jesus. And even then, it 
was conferred upon him simply as a compromise with 
paganism, and not because those who conferred it really 
believed that he actually was, in a literal sense, the “ be¬ 
gotten Son of God.” The vote, too, by which this doubt¬ 
ful compromise honor was conferred, was very far from 
unanimous. Indeed, from all that I can learn upon the 
subject, it was not even a majority vote of the whole coun¬ 
cil. A large number of delegates, under the leadership of 
the celebrated Arius, bravely voted against the idolatrous 
proposition to confer divine honors upon a human being, 
such as they all believed Jesus to have been. Many others 
refused to vote at all. They would not vote for the idol¬ 
atrous proposition in question, and they dared not vote 
against it. They were intimidated by that atrocious 
monster-murderer, Constantine, the Emperor, who had had 
himself made chairman of that council, and who had gone 
into it with an avowed determination, at all hazards, to 
compel the council to engraft upon the Christian Religion 
several of the most popular doctrines of paganism—of the 
religion which he had always loved and defended. 
Among these doctrines was the one now under considera¬ 
tion, that the Gods sometimes condescended to beget off¬ 
spring upon human mothers. Until then, Christianity 
had been, like Judaism, a strictly monotheistic religion. 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


739 


To such a religion, however, the polytheistic pagans could 
not be readily converted. They wanted a plurality of 
Gods, and they specially clung to the doctrine of demi¬ 
gods or mediators, to which they had always been ac¬ 
customed. In order, therefore, to gather into the Lord’s 
garner, the rich harvests growing upon the broad and fer¬ 
tile fields of paganism, it was found necessary to engraft 
this purely pagan doctrine upon Christianity. And this 
engrafting was accomplished by the plurality vote that 
conferred the honors of demi-Godship upon Jesus, the son 
of Mary. Constantine, who had recently become a partial 
convert to Christianity, but who still fondly clung to the 
pagan doctrine in question, on his own account as well as 
on that of all other pagans, determined, as I have already 
said, at all hazards, to have this old doctrine engrafted 
upon his new religion. And, by means to which none buft 
the most bloody-minded monsters ever resort, he accom¬ 
plished his unworthy purpose. 

When he took his seat as chairman of the council in. 
question, his hands were still reeking with the warm life¬ 
blood of many innocent persons, including several mem¬ 
bers of his own family, whom, in the most atrocious 
manner, he had recently murdered. Having taken liis seat 
as presiding officer, he at once proceeded to inspire the 
members of that council with a due sense of the fearful 
danger to themselves that would be incurred by those who 
should have the temerity to oppose any of his favorite- 
propositions. This he accomplished by promptly murder¬ 
ing, on the slightest provocation, his own son, Crispus,. 
who is said to have been an excellent young man, greatly 
loved by the people. 

Having thus, by this atrocious murder, fully established,, 
beyond any safe contradiction, both his capacity and his 
fitness to run that council to suit himself, he at once, as a. 
matter of course, became its controlling spirit. Indeed,, 
it may be truthfully said that he became the council itself. 
Those delegates—and to the honor of humanity, there were 


740 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


many sucli, who dared to oppose his wishes, did so at the 
almost certain cost of their own lives. Under such cir¬ 
cumstances, such a reign of terror, many who differed with 
him dared not oppose him. Most of those who were thus 
intimidated, declined to vote at all. In fear for their lives, 
the balance, in direct violation of their own convictions, 
voted with those who sustained his favorite doctrines. 
With the aid of these moral cowards, those delegates who 
were his mere instruments, who were still semi-pagans 
at heart, and whose votes were all virtually cast by 
himself, were enabled to succeed in their efforts to 
thoroughly paganize the Christian Religion. And it 
was by a vote of these moral cowards and these 
semi-pagan instruments of an atrocious murderer, and 
by that vote alone, that Jesus was made literally the 
Son of God, and was made to take the same place in the 
Christian Religion that was occupied in the pagan relig¬ 
ions by Chrishna, Buddha, Prometheus, and other supposed 
demi-gods. With the simple change, therefore, of only a 
few names, the songs which had hitherto been sung in 
honor of Prometheus, or of some other pagan deit3 r , were 
now sung in honor of the new-made Christian deity, Jesus. 
“Alas! and did our Savior bleed?” etc., is an old song 
formerly sung in the pagan temples in honor of Prome¬ 
theus. Christianity, therefore, as we now have it, is prin¬ 
cipally nothing more nor less than a mixture of the old 
pagan mythologies of India, Greece, Rome, and other 
countries. As the English language is almost entirely 
composed of words selected from other languages, so the 
Christian Religion is almost entirely composed of doc¬ 
trines and deities selected from other religions. Its great 
central idea consists in the idolatrous worship of a mere 
man who was made a deity by the strictly partisan votes 
of less than two hundred men, uninspired by anything 
higher or nobler than a fear for their own personal safety, 
or a desire to win the favor of that model of monsters, 
•Constantine their emperor. 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


741 


As I have already said, when speaking of himself, 
Jesus constantly called himself the “ Son of man .” This 
was especially the case when he was speaking with refer¬ 
ence to his own origin, or the order of beings to which he 
belonged. The following passage is an example : 44 The 
Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Be¬ 
hold a man, gluttonous, and a wine-bibber, a friend of 
publicans and sinners ” (Matt, xi, 19) Could he, by any 
possibility, have been thus the “ Son of man,” without 
being himself a man? If he was not a man, why did he 
never correct the mistake of his disciples and others who 
constantly called him a man, and treated him as such; 
who never thought of such a thing as offering to him any 
portion of that honor and that worship which they 
were wont to offer to the one God in whom they believed. 

But, if Jesus believed himself to be, like other men, a 
human being—the son of a human father—why, you ask, 
did he not say so in plain words? Why did he designate 
himself by the somewhat vague and general expression, 
“the Son of man?” I might, perhaps, answer these ques¬ 
tions, with sufficient precision to satisfy the propounders 
of them, by asking the following questions, which are of 
exactly the same nature : If Jesus believed himself to be 
literally the Son of God, why did he never say so in plain 
words ? Why did he never directly call himself the Son of 
God at all ? I will not, however, stop with the asking of 
these questions. I will answer your questions in full. 
Since, in all conceivable respects, Jesus seemed to be a man , 
and since no one ever mistook him for anything else, he had 
no more occasion to declare himself to be a man, and 
nothing but a man, than I have to make the same declara¬ 
tion in regard to myself. In regard to his supposed God - 
ship, however, the case was very different. Since he did 
not, in any conceivable respect, seem to be a God, and since 
no one ever seemed to regard him as one, he did have oc¬ 
casion to declare in plain words that he was one, if, indeed, 
such was the case. Since God had many sons by adoption r 


742 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


it was necessary, too, that Jesus should have distinctly de¬ 
clared that, unlike all of these other sons, lie , and he alone , 
was the son of God in a strictly literal sense; that he had 
"been literally begotten by God, just as a man is begotten by 
his father , and that he never had any human father. Having, 
however, entirely failed to make this important declaration, 
and having, on the contrary, often declared that he was 
the “Son of man,” and, consequently, a human being, 
what right have you to dispute his declaration, and to 
claim, as you do, that he was not the son of man , when he 
said that he was ? 

In declaring himself to be the “ Son of man ”—the word 
man being evidently used, in its generic or general sense, to 
include the whole human race—Jesus distinctly declared 
that he was a child or offspring of the human race, and, 
consequently, a member of that race. For excellent rea¬ 
sons, already noticed, he never mentioned the particular 
man of whom he was directly the son or offspring. No 
matter who that individual man may have been, however, 
lie was undeniably a part of the genus, man—of the human 
race. Whatever, therefore, was produced directly by that 
part of the human race, evidently constituted a part of the 
general production of the race as a whole. As an apple, 
although directly produced by a small twig, might very 
properly claim to be the fruit of the tree to which the 
twig belonged, and as it might very properly claim as 
brethren all the other apples borne in like manner by that 
common tree—that great commune parent—no matter by 
bow many different little twigs they may have been directly 
produced, so Jesus, in pursuance of his great communistic 
ideal , utterly ignoring the little and uncertain twig of a 
father—the little twig of a mother, too, that had directly 
produced him—very naturally, and very properly, claimed 
to be the “ Son of man ,” the child or offspring of the 
human race, the fruit of the great commune parent-tree to 
which those two little twigs belonged. Very correctly, too, 
from his communistic standpoint, he regarded as brethren 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


743 


all the other individuals, borne, as he was, upon that great 
commune parent-tree, “ man,” the genus homo, no matter 
by how many different little individual parent twigs they 
may have been directly produced. Have I not now fully 
and fairly answered your questions? And have I not 
fully and fairly proved that, by nature, Jesus was just as 
purely human, on the side of both parents, as are we our¬ 
selves ; and that, except in a figurative sense, he never 
was, and never claimed to be, anything but a human 
being ? 

If, however, as paganized Christians now generally 
teach, Jesus never had any human father—if he was, in 
fact, the literally begotten Son of God—then the question 
naturally arises, how did God manage to beget him ? The 
pagans, from whom, as I have already shown, the idea of 
hybrid or half-breed Gods was borrowed, found no diffi¬ 
culty whatever in regard to the modus operandi by which 
the Gods were enabled to beget that kind of offspring. 
They simply had the Gods materialize themselves, a la 
mode Katie King—that is, assume bodily forms, similar to 
the bodies of men, and instantly constructed for the occa¬ 
sion, and then had them, by means of these assumed 
bodies, hold genuine sexual intercourse with the women 
whom they had chosen to be the mothers of their respective 
mongrel offspring. Such intercourse was generally, if not 
always, held in the temple of the God that so graciously 
condescended to thus embrace one of the daughters of 
men. Having selected a beautiful young woman, always a 
virgin, of course, and noted for her blind devotion to his 
particular form of religion, the God, through a priest, 
would make known to her his wishes, and request her to 
come and remain over night in the temple, promising, in 
case of her compliance, to embrace her in a bodily form, 
and to confer upon her the wonderful blessing of making 
her the mother of his deific offspring. Sometimes a virgin 
had to make many such visits to the temple before the de¬ 
sired result was obtained, and she was made the pros- 


744 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


pective mother of a half-breed God. The only serious 
drawback to this method was the fact that the young half- 
breed was generally birth-marked with a striking resem¬ 
blance to some one of the lusty priests of the temple in 
which its conception had so miraculously taken place. 

Instead of thus materializing themselves, however, 
some of the Gods of the pagans preferred to take posses¬ 
sion of the body of a living man, always a lusty priest, of 
course, and, through that man’s sexual organs, beget his 
young Jesuses and other young Gods; just as spirits are 
said now to sometimes take possession of living per¬ 
sons, and, through the hands of those persons, who are 
called mediums, to write messages to the living from their 
departed friends. In this case, however, the child was 
nearly always birth-marked with a remarkable resem¬ 
blance to the priest with -whose sexual organs the God 
had begotten him. This unavoidable birth-mark was a 
great misfortune. 

As I showed, in a former lecture, the God of the Bible, 
like these pagan deities, used, at times, to have a body re¬ 
sembling the body of a man. With such a body he might, 
perhaps, very easily have begotten a child—just as easily as 
he did walk, eat, wrestle, etc., with it. Before he had seen 
fit to beget any child, however, his worshipers very un¬ 
generously stripped him of every vestige of his body, and 
reduced him, as I also showed, to the unenviable and ut¬ 
terly inert condition of empty space—of a perfect vacuum. 
They left him neither body nor parts, neither boundaries 
nor organization, and now, in direct contradiction to the 
teachings of many of the plainest passages of the Bible, 
they solemnly swear that, to the best of their knowledge 
and belief, nothing of a material or substantial nature, 
such as would be requisite for the constitution of a body, 
ever entered into his composition. 

Notwithstanding all these things, however, the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible represent this boundless, bodiless, 
shapeless, and motionless God—this perfect vacuum—this 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


745 


utter nonentity, as a male , and unblusliingly declare that, 
although he was a chronic old bachelor, he was the actual 

father of a certain Miss Mary-*s baby. They not 

only teach that these things are absolutely true, but also 
that a belief in them, on our part, is absolutely necessary 
to salvation. They unceremoniously consign to eternal tor¬ 
ments all of us poor infidels who find ourselves utterly un¬ 
able to believe such ridiculous nonsense. And yet, if a 
Miss Smith, a Miss Brown, or some other Miss of their 
own neighborhood were to become a mother in exactly the 

same way that Miss Mary- did, how many of these 

same good and faithful Christians—these intolerant God- 
damners of infidels, would believe that the young Smith, 
the young Brown, or the young bastard of any other 
name, w T as a God, or would worship him as such? Would 
they not be almost sure to imagine that they perceived in 
the child a resemblance to some preacher, or other gentle¬ 
man of the neighborhood ? And if they themselves, after 
seeing such a child, and after conversing with its mother— 
after informing themselves as far as possible, by direct in¬ 
vestigation, in regard to all the circumstances of its con¬ 
ception, its birth, etc.—if they themselves^ I repeat, on 
such first-class evidence, could not believe the child to be 
a God, upon what principles of justice can they condemn 
us poor infidels to everlasting flames because we are un¬ 
able to believe the same thing, on purely hearsay evidence 
handed down, for nearly twenty centuries, through the 
most corrupt of channels ? 

In order to become an actual father , such as the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible declare that he did become, God, of ne¬ 
cessity, had to actually beget a child; and, in order to thus 
beget a child, he had, of equal necessity, to possess organs 
of sex and to use those organs , in the purely physical act 
called copulation, upon the corresponding organs of the 
child’s mother. This is the only act that can constitute 
a begetting. These are facts which no intelligent person 
will attempt to dispute. And yet, on pain of eternal dam- 




746 THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 

nation, we are required to implicitly believe that a child 
was actually begotten by this God of yours ; by something 
utterly without body, parts, passions, boundaries, or ma¬ 
terial composition; by something exactly equivalent to 
empty space—to a perfect vacuum; by something so vast 
in extent that light, traveling ten billion times ten billion 
ages, would be no nearer to the end of it than we are now; 
by something which, having no room at all to move in, is, 
of necessity, utterly incapable of the slighest motion, in 
whole or in part, in any conceivable direction. 

And, now, in order to enable us poor infidels to believe 
this monstrous baby-story and to thus escape eternal 
damnation, will not some one of these good men who feel 
themselves to be specially called of God to preach the 
gospel, and to save souls, be so kind as to explain to us 
exactly how God did manage to beget the baby in question? 
Although we do not know just what it is to be damned, yet 
we frankly confess that, from all we have ever heard of it, 
from those who do know, we would a little rather not under¬ 
go the operation; and since faith in this baby-story is our 
only means of salvation, we would like to believe the story 
if we only could. 

The champions of the Bible should have permitted 
their adopted God to retain the body which, according to 
the testimony of the Bible, he certainly once possessed, 
until after he had begotten this very necessary baby. As 
the case now stands, having themselves dissipated him 
into absolutely empty space, it devolves upon them to 
prove that in this utterly empty condition, he not only 
could, but actually did, perform the wonderful feat of 
literally begetting the child in question, without even the 
slightest trace of anything to beget it with. This must, 
indeed, be one of the mysteries of Godliness. 

Does God’s sexual power exist equally everywhere 
throughout his entire infinite extent? If it does, if it 
exists all around our own women, just as it existed around 
the mother of Jesus, what is to hinder it from having the 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


747 


same effect upon them that it had upon her? Are they not 
liable, at any time, to become the mothers of little half- 
breed Gods ? And how are we to know our own offspring ? 
What assurance have we that any of our supposed sons 
are of our own begetting ? May they not all be little 
Jesuses begotten in the very same way that Miss Mary 
-’s little Jesus was begotten? 

If, on the other hand, God’s sexual power does not 
exist equally everywhere throughout his entire infinite 
extent, at what particular point in himself, and in infinite 
space, with which he is exactly identical, does that power 
exist, and in what respect does that point differ from any 
other point ? In other and plainer words, which the vast 
importance of the subject justifies mo in using, where was 
the seed or life-germ, from which Jesus sprang, produced; 
by what agencies was it produced; of what kind of material 
was it composed; whence did that material come;. and by 
what means was that germ finally conveyed to the proper 
spot in the body of the mother? These are all fair, 
proper, and important questions, but who can answer 
them? To place God’s sexual power in some particular 
part of him is to give him organization. 

The great commentator, Adam Clarke, gives it as his 
opinion that the life-germ in question must have been 
created , all out of nothing, at the proper spot inside of the 
mother’s body. Mr. Clarke, however, overlooks the im¬ 
portant fact that such a creating of a child would be no 
begetting of it at all. In that case, God would have been 
simply the child’s creator , not it’s father. The child, too, 
being a created being, would, of necessity, have been 
also a finite being. It could not possibly have been either 
God himself, or a being equal unto God himself, as Jesus 
is claimed by his worshipers to have been. God could 
not have created himself. Indeed, a child created in that 
manner would not necessarily have made a man in any 
respect superior to one created in the manner that Adam 
was. It would be just as reasonable to claim that God 



748 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


was the father of the ape, the ass, the devil, or anything 
else that he ever created, as it would have been to claim 
that he was the father of such a created baby. It would be 
just as reasonable and proper, too, to worship, as a God, 
the ape, the ass, the devil, or any other created thing, as it 
would have been to worship, as a God, this created baby. 
How, then, did God beget that baby ? 

Of necessity, there must have been a particular mo¬ 
ment just previous to which there was no life-germ in the 
womb of that child’s mother, and immediately after which 
there was such a life-germ in her womb. By what pro¬ 
cess, then, was this change made in her condition ? Did 
she herself know just when this change took place? If 
she did know this, by what means was she enabled to know 
it? Who can tell? 

Of equal necessity, too, the life-germ in question must 
have been originally produced either within that woman’s 
body, or without it. If within her body, then, of necessity, 
it could never have been produced by a male. In this 
case, the child, of course, not having been ever begotten, 
could not have had any father at all. This would have 
been simply a case of spontaneous conception to which 
our own women would be equally liable. This ab¬ 
surd hypothesis, then, would just as thoroughly ungod 
Jesus as would the proving of him to have been the son of 
a human father. 

If, on the other hand, that life-germ was produced some¬ 
where outside of that woman’s body, then, of necessity, it 
must have been literally conveyed from the place in which 
it was produced to the proper spot in her body. By what 
means, then, I again ask, was it conveyed to that spot, and 
from what point in infinite space was it conveyed? Being 
itself of material composition, and being designed for a 
material receptacle, could it possibly have been conveyed 
to that receptacle by any other than a material conductor? 
What, then, was that conductor, and by whom was it op¬ 
erated? Our priests should answer these questions. 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR, 


749 


It is a fact, which no intelligent person will pretend to 
dispute, that the production of such life-germs is a func¬ 
tion of the male sex alone. In order, however, to be capable 
of producing such life-germs, the male, whether he be a 
God, a man, an ape, or an ass, must, of necessity, possess 
organs of sex—organs specially adapted to the production 
of such germs. Indeed, without a special physical organi¬ 
zation to constitute sex, no such thing as sex could possibly 
exist. It is also a well known fact that, in order to beget 
offspring, the sexual organs of the male must, of necessity, 
in all cases, be so adapted to the corresponding organs of 
the female, and so brought into contact with them, that 
the life-germ, uninjured, may be transferred from the 
former set of organs to the latter. The act, or rather the 
peculiar series of actions, by which the male brings his 
organs of sex into the proper intimate contact with the 
corresponding organs of the female, and by which he trans¬ 
fers to the proper spot in her body the life-germ of a new 
individual, is called begetting offspring, and is the only 
act or series of actions, that, in a literal sense, ever is or 
ever could be so called. By no other possible act, can the 
male, among viviparous animals like men, ever literally 
beget offspring or become fathers. If, then, God ever did 
literally beget a child and thereby become a father, and 
this literal begetting—this genuine sexual intercourse on 
his part with the child’s mother—is the only form of beget¬ 
ting that would render a human father unnecessary, and 
render the child really a God, he must, of necessity, just 
like a man, an ape, or an ass, when begetting offspring, 
have literally performed the peculiar act, or series of 
actions, w hich I have just been describing. 

In order, however, to be able to perform this act, his 
organs of sex had, of necessity, to be adapted, like those 
of a man, to the corresponding organs of the woman upon 
whom the act was performed. Since, therefore, hers were 
material organs of a certain size and form, his must, of 
necessity, have also been material organs, and of just the 


750 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


size and shape, too, to adapt them to hers. No mere spir¬ 
itual, shadowy, or imaginary male sexual organs on his 
part would have answered the purpose ; nor would organs 
corresponding in size and in shape—or, rather, in want of 
shape—with his own infinitely extensive and utterly shape¬ 
less self. Indeed, the life-germ from which Jesus sprang, 
being the nucleus or embryo of a material body, and being 
itself composed of matter, could not possibly have had 
any other than a material source, and could not possibly 
have been conveyed by any other than physical or mechan¬ 
ical means from the place in which it was produced to the 
proper spot for development within the woman’s body. 
In what respect, then, could the body of Jesus’s father have 
differed from that of a man? If it had differed in any 
respect whatever, would there not, of necessity, have been 
a corresponding difference between the life-germ which, 
as an effect, proceeded from it, and the life-germ, which, 
as an effect, proceeds from the body of a man ? Could un¬ 
like causes produce other than unlike effects ? And, if the 
body of Jesus had been developed from a life-germ different 
from the life-germ of a man, would not his body itself— 
that same life-germ—simply developed, have been bound 
to differ, in a corresponding degree, from the body of 
a man ? 

Of necessity, Jesus must have been a God, a man, or a 
cross between a God and a man. Of equal necessity, 
therefore, his body must have been the body of a God, the 
body of a man, or a cross between those two bodies. Ac¬ 
cording to all orthodox teachings, however, of modern 
times, no true God has any body. I suppose, therefore, 
that no truly orthodox champion of the Bible will think of 
claiming that the body of Jesus was either the body of a 
God, or a cross between the body of a God and the body 
of a man. In other words, I take it to be conceded on all 
hands that the body of Jesus was purely a human body. 
Indeed, if his body was not human, what was there human 
about him ? Dare the champions of the Bible claim that 



THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


751 


the thing incarnated—his soul, his very self—was human* 
or of human origin ? 

But what was that human body of Jesus ; what could 
it have been, but a fully developed human spermatozoon, 
or life-germ? And could such a spermatozoon or life- 
germ have possibly proceeded from any other than a 
human source ? And does a life-germ, in its process of 
development, ever entirely lose its original nature ? Does 
the life-germ of a potato for instance, ever develop into 
the body of a pure apple-tree, or the life-germ of an apple 
into the body of a pure potato plant? Does the life-germ 
of a sheep ever develop into the body of a pure ass, or the 
life-germ of an ass into the body of a pure sheep ? So of 
Gods and men. If they realty be entirety different orders 
of beings, as the champions of the Bible all admit that 
they are, is it reasonable to suppose that a life-germ of 
the one was ever developed into a pure body of the other ? 
A man may make a God, and a God may make a man; but 
neither of them can possibly beget the other. Neither of 
them can possibly beget anything but a being of his own 
order. A God could beget an ape or an ass, and be its 
father, just as easily as he could beget a man and be his 
father. The father is the cause. The son is the effect. 
And as the cause is, so must the effect be. 

Be all these things as they may, however, the body of 
Jesus, as I have already shown, was a purely human body, 
a fully developed human spermatozoon or life-germ. This 
fact being established, it follows, as a matter of necessity, 
that all the functions of his body were purely human 
functions. His eyes, his ears, his stomach, etc., must, of 
necessity, have performed precisely the same functions as 
are performed respectively by the same organs in any 
other human body. So of his purely human brain. It 
could not possibly have given forth, as its function, any 
other than purely human thoughts, feelings, and desires. 
So also of his purely human organs of sex. With these, 
he could doubtless have begotten sons and daughters. 


752 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


These sons and daughters, however, would all have been 
men and women, not Gods and Goddesses. Dare the 
champions of the Bible deny any of these plain truths ? 
If not, what was Jesus, what could he have been, corpo¬ 
really at least, but a purely human being ? 

If, however, the champions of the Bible do dare dis¬ 
pute these truths, and especially those in regard to the 
sexual organs and sexual powers of Jesus, then, of neces¬ 
sity, they are compelled to choose one or the other horn 
of the following dilemma : They must either charge Jesus 
with having had less power than has an ordinary man, 
with having been utterly impotent sexually, with having 
been utterly incapable of begetting offspring at all, or else 
they must admit that he was capable of begetting an in¬ 
definite number of young Gods and Goddesses, who, in 
their turn, would, in like manner, have also been capable 
of still further increasing the number of beings of their 
own order. If they choose the first horn of this dilemma, 
and bring the very grave charge of utter sexual impotence 
against Jesus, then it devolves upon them to prove the 
truth of this charge, and to prove that Jesus lied when he 
said: “ All poiver is given unto me in heaven and in earth” 
If they choose the other horn, then it devolves upon them 
to say whether all the children, grandchildren, etc.—mill¬ 
ions though there might have finally been of them—that 
might have finally proceeded from him, would have been 
so many distinct beings, or whether they would all have 
been only one single God, just as they now teach that 
Jesus, and his father, and another God—a friend of theirs 
—all constitute only one single God. The fact, if it be a 
fact, that Jesus did not beget any offspring, does not make 
any difference so far as the argument is concerned. If he 
was capable of begetting them, then they were evidently 
capable of existing. Their existence, therefore, was once a 
possible, if not a probable, contingency, and whatever is 
thus clearly possible or probable, is always fairly suppos- 
able in an argument. What, then, would the posterity of 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


753 


*Jesus have been had he seen fit to beget any children? 
Who can tell? 

Grossly absurd as i's the doctrine that Jesus was liter¬ 
ally the begotten son of a God, it is, if possible, rendered 
a thousand times more absurd by making Jesus—as nearly 
all the champions of the Bible do make him—to have been 
his own father—the very self-same God by whom he was 
himself begotten. This doctrine is undeniably the very 
essence of orthodox Christianity, and yet all intelligent 
persons, except the priests who are paid for preaching it, 
can see that it is also the very essence of absurdity. Just 
as reasonably might you say of an ape, an ass, or a man, 
that he himself is the very self-same ape, ass, or man that 
begot him. If, in a literal sense, a God could beget him¬ 
self a son, without thereby increasing the number of Gods, 
then, on the same principle, an ape, an ass, or a man 
•could, in the same sense, beget himself a son, without 
thereby increasing the number of apes, asses, or men. If 
two or more Gods could be only one God, as most of the 
•champions of the Bible teach that they are, then two or 
more apes could certainly be only one ape, two or more 
,asses only one ass, and two or more men only one man. 
All of these things are evidently possible, if any of 
them are. 

Every intelligent person, however, knows that, in be¬ 
getting himself a son, a God, an ape, an ass, or a man 
must, of necessity, start into existence an entirely new in¬ 
dividual of his own order of beings. If, then, God ever 
did beget himself a son at all, he must, of necessity, have 
thereby increased the number of distinct and independent 
Gods. And if he ever did this, then we undeniably have 
a plurality of Gods, just as had the old pagans. Like those 
pagans, too, we have the means within our reach to so in¬ 
crease the number of Gods that, if he so desires it, every 
man may have one God or more of his own. Who of you 
dare charge God with having become sexually impotent? 
Who of you dare say that, if he saw fit to do so, he could 


754 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


not beget countless millions of young Gods. And if lie 
can do so, what proof have you that he has not done so, 
and will not yet do so ? 

Nearly all the champions of the Bible, however, of the 
present day, are opposed to this unlimited increase of the 
number of the Gods. Seeing, therefore, that, if they per¬ 
mit God to beget one distinct young God, they open the 
way for him to beget as many more as he may please, they 
almost unanimously agree to teach that, when begetting 
his so-called son, Jesus, he did not impart to the mother 
the life-germ of a new and distinct individual , but conveyed 
his entire self into her womb, and there had himself clothed 
in human flesh. A strange begetting truly, for the entire 
person of the male to thus fall, or crawl, into the womb of 
the female with whom he was holding sexual intercourse! 
She must have been a Brobdignagian, and he a Lilli¬ 
putian. 

In order, however, to perform this wonderful feat, he 
had, of necessity, to draw himself in, on every side, from 
the illimitable universe, to render himself finite in his size 
or extent—in short, to compress himself into a sperma¬ 
tozoon or life-germ—into a particle of matter so exceed¬ 
ingly small as to be utterly invisible to the unaided sight 
of men. If he conveyed himself to the womb of that 
woman at all, he must, of necessity, have conveyed him¬ 
self thither in his entirety. Had he remained abroad in 
the universe, the same as before, or had he conveyed only an 
infinitesimal portion of himself to the womb of that woman, 
it would evidently not have been himself at all that was born 
of her under the name of Jesus. Picture yourself, then, 
with a powerful microscope, searching for your God, in 
the form of a spermatozoon or life-germ, just as you would 
search for animalculae in a drop of water, or for trichinae 
in an extremely small bit of old sausage. If you can con¬ 
ceive of your God in this condition, then you can begin to 
form a just conception of the unparalleled absurdities of 



THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 755 

tlie Christian Religion. If you would be a Christian, be 
blind. 

And now, let me ask, who ruled the universe while God 
was thus compressed into a microscopic particle of matter; 
while he was undergoing the slow process of gestation; 
while he was a little, helpless, toothless, crying babe, 
wrapped in swaddling-clothes; while he was suffering from 
teething, from dysentery, from measles, from whooping- 
cough, etc. ? Besides this, since, as you teach, all things 
are possible with God, why could he not just as easily 
have reduced himself to two or to three life-germs and 
been born twins or triplets ; or to ten thousand life-germs, 
and have been born of ten thousand different virgins? 
At any rate, since, as you teach, he is no respecter of 
persons—since, in his sight, one race and one color are 
as good as another—why could he not just as easily and 
just as properly have entered into the womb of some 
African virgin, and had himself born a woolly-head¬ 
ed, thick-lipped, flat-nosed, protruding-jawed, spindle- 
shanked, long-lieeled darkey, with the exceedingly offensive 
odor peculiar to the negro race ? If, in his infinite wis¬ 
dom, he had seen fit to be born thus a pure darkey, how 
many of you would now be willing to worship him as a 
God in that form ? 

Be all these things as they may, however, we certainly 
are required, on pain of eternal damnation—whatever that 
may be—to implicitly believe that the infinite sum of all 
the forces eternally inhering in matter—the infinite sum of 
all the forces that rule the universe, and produce all the 
phenomena of nature—the infinite sum of all the forces 
that constitute what is usually called God—actually 
did thus reduce itself to an animalcule utterly in¬ 
visible to the naked eye; that, while in this microscopic 
form, by a process called begetting itself a son, it actually 
did convey its entire self into the woman ; that it actually 
did possess all the properties of a human spermatozoon or 
life-germ, and no other properties ; that, in the womb of 


756 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


that woman, it actually did undergo the process of gesta¬ 
tion ; that it actually was born a little helpless baby ; that 
like any other baby, it actually did have to live on milk, 
and to take soot tea, soothing syrup, paregoric, etc.; that, 
like any other baby, it actually did squirm and squall 
when suffering from colic, or from any other of the thou¬ 
sand ills to which human flesh is heir; that, as it grew 
larger, like any other boy, it actually did often go home 
bellowing because some larger boy had blacked its eye 
or smashed its nose ; and a thousand other things equally 
absurd. On the same penalty, we are required, moreover, 
to believe that it did and suffered all these things for the 
express purpose of finally having itself put to death to ap¬ 
pease its own wrath, which, as I have already explained, 
had been terribly aroused, thousands of years before, by 
our first parents, when they ate some fruit, which it had 
forbidden them to eat, but which it nevertheless intended 
that they should eat. 

We are still further required to believe that, while in 
the limited form of a man, this utterly illimitable power 
often addressed itself as its own father, while, at the same 
time, it claimed to be the “ son of (a) manthat it daily 
offered up prayers to itself ; that it claimed to possess no 
powers except such as it had received from itself; that it 
finally had itself put to death, although it could not die, 
and then ascended up to heaven—whatever and wherever 
that may be—where it had been all the time ; that, al¬ 
though it never had any hand or other bodily part, it 
nevertheless took a seat at its own right hand, where it 
still sits interceding with itself for sinners; that this was 
all a divine scheme, stratagem, or trick devised and exe¬ 
cuted for the express purpose of cheating the devil out of 
his just dues, by snatching from his clutches and saving 
in heaven men who, according to every principle of justice 
and fitness, ought to go hell, whatever and wherever that 
may be; that, without this wonderful scheme, stratagem, 
or trick, the power in question would have found it abso- 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


757 


lutely necessary to eternally damn the whole human race ; 
and that, even with the scheme, it is compelled to damn 
all those who are too intelligent to believe all of these ab¬ 
surdities. Since none but fools can believe these things, 
who but fools can hope to be saved? 

And now I wish to examine the evidence upon which 
rests this fundamental doctrine of the Christian Religion, 
this wonderful story of. God’s literal incarnation in the 
womb of a woman whom he himself had made. The only 
evidence we have upon the subject is found in certain books 
of the New Testament called Gospels; and these books, 
four in number, plainly contradict one another in almost 
every particular pertaining to this matter. These contra¬ 
dictions clearly prove that the writings of some of these 
books are certainly false; and, since we do not know which 
ones of them are false, w^e cannot possibly know which 
ones are true. Indeed, although we have positive proof 
that some of them are false, we have no proof at all that 
any of them are true. Since we do not know when any of 
these books w r ere written, by whom they w^ere written, in 
what language they were written, or for what purpose they 
were written, we cannot be sure that there is a w r ord of 
truth in any of them. All of these facts have been fully 
proved in former lectures. For the present, accepting 
these writings as they have reached us through a thousand 
corrupt channels, what do they prove in regard to the 
matter under consideration ? Of the four Gospels now ex¬ 
tant, two, Mark and John, are almost entirely silent upon 
the subject. The other two, Matthew and Luke, almost 
uniformly contradict each other all the way through. 

The author of Matthew, whose name and character are 
both totally unknown to us, bases the whole doctrine of 
the incarnation of God, or the immaculate conception of 
Jesus, upon a dream which he says was dreamed by an 
obscure and superstitious individual by the name of Jo- 
seph. This man was the affianced husband of the woman 
in whose womb this so-called incarnation of God is said to 


758 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


have taken place. Admitting, however, that the author 
reported the dream just as he heard it, and that, through 
a thousand devious and corrupt channels, his report has 
reached us unchanged, of what value is that report ? Since 
the dreamer alone could have known and told his dream, 
his utterly unsupported word was the only authority upon 
the subject which the author could possibly have had. 
And of what value was such authority ? What do we know 
of the dreamer’s character for veracity? Was not he a 
deeply interested party? Was not his dream story, if be¬ 
lieved by the people, calculated, better than anything else, 
to get himself and his affianced bride out of a serious 
difficulty into which they had imprudently fallen ? 

According to the laws of the country, it became Jo¬ 
seph’s duty, as the affianced husband of this woman who 
was called Mary, to put her to death, or to inflict upon her 
some other heavy penalty for the offense of which her de¬ 
tected pregnancy was prima fade evidence that she had 
been guilty. Being, however, a man of very kind disposi¬ 
tion, and being deeply in love with this young woman, who 
is said to have been very beautiful, and to have borne, until 
then, a spotless reputation, being, too, probably, himself 
the father of her unborn babe, he could not find it in his 
heart to perform the cruel duty of inflicting death, or any 
other severe punishment, upon her. He preferred to for¬ 
give her, and to still hold her to the marriage engagement 
that existed between them. Having doubtless heard her 
story of her offense, if he did not already know it, he felt 
more inclined to pity her than to blame her and to punish 
her. But how could he, in the face of an indignant public, 
take to his arms a dishonored woman, and make her the 
step-mother of the children he already had and the prob¬ 
able mother of children yet to be born to him ? Besides 
this, unless he could save her from becoming disgraced in 
the eyes of the public, his kind intentions toward her 
would have been of no avail. Some other party would 
have had inflicted upon her the punishment which he de- 



THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR 


759 

dined to inflict. Everything depended upon his saving 
her from disgrace in the eyes of the public. If he could 
only save her from this, all would yet be well. 

Since, therefore, at that time, dreams were in high re¬ 
pute among the Jews, as was also the doctrine that Gods 
sometimes condescended to beget deific offspring upon 
human mothers, what could have been more natural, under 
the circumstances in which he and Mary found themselves 
placed, than that Josepli should invent and solemnly re¬ 
port just such a dream as the one in question ? Could he 
make this stratagem succeed, he would thereby not only 
save Mary from disgrace and probable death, but would 
also render his proposed .marriage with her honorable in 
the eyes of the people. Indeed, he would do more than 
this. He would place his own name and those of his wife 
and her child upon the undying pages of fame. And why 
should not this stratagem be made to succeed ? Had it 
not been made to succeed in the cases of many other re¬ 
puted virgins, the mother of Clirishna, the mother of Prome¬ 
theus, etc., who had been found in the same condition ? 
At any rate, since the dream, even in case of failure, could 
do no harm, the chances of success certainly justified the 
attempt. Joseph accordingly dreamed the dream in ques¬ 
tion, just as you or I would have dreamed it, had we been 
in his place. This I regard as the most rational explana¬ 
tion of that wonderful dream story. 

Suppose, however, that Joseph really did dream such 
a dream, what was that dream worth ? If one of us 
should dream a similar dream, concerning some unfortu¬ 
nate young woman of our own neighborhood, of how much 
value as evidence would our own dream be. And can 
Joseph’s dream possibly be any better evidence to us in 
such a case than our own would be ? What is a dream ? 
Simply an embodiment of the thoughts and fancies con¬ 
ceived by the mind, while a portion of its faculties are 
quiescent in sleep. In other words, dreaming is nothing 
more than the action of only a part of the mind. When 


760 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


sleep is perfect, when no part of the mind, or of its organ, 
the brain, is in action, there is no thought at all, and, con¬ 
sequently, no dreaming. So, when we are fully awake, 
when our thoughts proceed from the whole mind, and not 
from a part of it only, the process of thinking is no longer 
called dreaming. We are then dealing with the real, and 
not, as in dreaming, with the imaginary. That this is the 
correct view of dreaming, few intelligent persons will now 
dispute. And can a man know more, or reason better, 
with a part only of his mind, than he can with it all ? If 
not, were Joseph’s dreaming thoughts of any more value 
than were his waking thoughts ? Which were more in 
accordance with reason, science, and common sense, man’s 
only reliable guides, his waking thoughts, which pointed 
to a man as the father of Mary’s unborn babe, or his 
dreaming thoughts, which, as the father of that babe, 
pointed to a ghost of whom no one had ever before heard? 
Which are more likely to beget babies, men or ghosts ? 
By which, then, a man, or a ghost, is it more probable that 
Jesus was begotten? And why was it that “the angel of 
the Lord” could never make his appearance to Joseph 
when this dreamy old gentleman was awake ? Why did 
that angel, on all occasions, come sneaking up to Joseph 
when this latter person was asleep, and when, consequently,, 
he could neither see clearly, nor reason correctly ? 

Your priests and your Sunday-school teachers have 
doubtless inculcated into your minds the idea that Joseph 
actually saw an “ angel of the Lord,” and that he actually 
heard that angel speak certain words concerning Mary 
and her unborn babe. The Bible, however, as you can 
easily learn by reading it for yourselves, gives no such 
account of the affair. It simply represents Joseph as 
dreaming that he saw an angel, and that he heard the 
angel speak those words. Realities , you well know, are not 
dreams. Had the apparent visit of the angel to Joseph, 
therefore, been a reality , there would evidently have been 
no more dream about it than there is about my presence 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


761 


before you at this moment. The fact, then, that Joseph’s 
angel was a dream angel is proof positive that the whole 
thing was nothing more than a simple, and, under the cir¬ 
cumstances, a very natural creation, of Joseph’s own 
partially dormant brain. Of what value, then, was that 
dream? On a certain occasion, there appeared to myself, 
in a dream, flying through the air, about a thousand feet 
from the earth, a whole battalion of artillerymen, with 
their cannons, their artillery wagons, their horses, etc. 
Mine was a real, and not an invented dream; and that is 
more than can be safely said of Joseph’s dream. But are 
even the most credulous among you prepared to believe 
that what I seemed, in my dream, to see were real artil¬ 
lerymen, real wagons, etc. ? Which testimony is worth 
the most, that of the man who testifies that he was fully 
awake when he saw and heard the things concerning which 
he testifies, or that of the man who testifies that he was 
sound asleep when he saw and heard them, or, rather, 
when he seemed to see and to hear them ? 

Let us suppose that, with your present degree or 
amount of intelligence, you had lived at the time of which 
we are speaking. Let us suppose, too, that the young 
woman in question had been the daughter of your next 
neighbor, Mr. Smith or Mr. Brown, and that she had 
caused a great deal of scandal in the neighborhood by 
becoming a prospective mother without ever having been 
a wife. Let us suppose, further, that Mr. Joseph Green, 
another neighbor of yours, an old widower, a man rather 
stupid, and grossly superstitious; a believer in dreams, in 
ghosts, in the sexual cohabitation of Gods and ghosts 
with human females, and other things equally absurd, had 
been desperately in love with the young woman in ques¬ 
tion, and, in spite of her misfortune, had wished to marry 
her. Let us suppose, finally, that, just at the right time 
to rescue her almost hopelessly lost reputation, this old 
dreamer had dreamed that an “angel of the Lord,” 
whatever that may have been, had informed him that- 


762 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


her unborn babe was the offspring of a certain ghost 
of whom no one had ever before heard, would you, on the 
strength of that dream, have bowed down to that little, 
helpless, bastard babe, after its birth, and worshiped it as 
a God ? Or, let us suppose that the child in question had 
not been born until the present time, and that he was born 
of some unmarried woman of your own neighborhood, 
would you worship him as a God ? You know very well 
that you would not. And can this ghost-baby-dream story 
have become any more worthy of belief, by reaching us, 
as it does, through mere hearsay handed down through a 
thousand corrupt channels, than it would have been had it 
been received directly from the lips of the dreamer 
himself ? 

Luke tells a very different story about this ghost-baby 
affair. He says that the angel Gabriel interviewed Mary 
herself, and made known to her all that was about to hap¬ 
pen to her. This story entirely relieves Joseph of the 
necessity of dreaming, and, in my opinion, is a better story 
than is that told by Matthew. As a historical production, 
however, Luke’s story is of no more value than is that of 
Matthew. Since no one except Mary herself saw the 
angel, on the occasion in question, or heard him speak, her 
own utterly unsupported word was evidently the only tes¬ 
timony in regard to the matter that the author of Luke 
could have had upon which to base his story. But, under 
the circumstances, of how much value was her unsupported 
word in regard to a matter so utterly incredible in its na¬ 
ture ? What do we know of her character for veracity ? 
Were the Jews of her time, as a rule, noted for their love 
of truth? Was she not the most deeply interested of all 
the parties involved in the matter? Was not her story, 
too, quite a common one among unmarried women who 
found themselves in a condition similar to hers ? If her 
name had been Mary Smith, and she had been the daugh¬ 
ter of your next neighbor, of how much value, in your esti¬ 
mation, would have been her unsupported word in regard 



THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


763 


to her own unpleasant condition ? Under similar circum¬ 
stances, how much credence would you now give to the 
similarly unsupported word of an equally truthful young 
woman of your own neighborhood ? You know very well 
that you would regard such a story as unworthy of any¬ 
thing but ridicule. And yet, in either of these supposed 
cases, the testimony, coming directly from the pretended 
virgin herself, would be a thousand times better than it 
now is, reaching us, as it does, through a countless number 
of doubtful hearsays. Such women are never regarded as 
virgins, and such babies are never worshiped as Gods by 
those who are most intimately acquainted with them and 
their affairs. In order to believe such stories, it is neces¬ 
sary that we be totally ignorant of the real facts, and that 
we be, moreover, so blinded by priestcraft as to be unable 
to reason upon such subjects. 

Upon these two absurd and contradictory stories, writ¬ 
ten by no one knows whom, and upon them alone, rests 
the doctrine of the divine paternity of Jesus, and upon 
this doctrine, and upon it alone, rests the entire Christian 
Religion. And must we, indeed, be eternally tormented 
in fire and brimstone, if we find ourselves utterly unable, 
on such testimony, to believe either of these two supremely 
ridiculous stories ? If we must, then who, except the most 
arrant fools who can believe anything that their priests 
tell them to believe, can hope to escape eternal and un¬ 
utterable torments ? 

How came God to possess sex ? Of necessity, its pos¬ 
session by him, and its special relation or adaptation to 
the accomplishment of a particular object—the begetting 
of Jesus—must have been the results either of pure acci¬ 
dent or of deliberate design. If they were results of pure 
accident , then, of necessity, chance must have existed 
before God, , and both God and Jesus must have been 
not only finite , but, also, purely accidental beings. This 
hypothesis, as you doubtless perceive, would utterly un- 
vGod them both. If, on the other hand, they were the 


764 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


results of deliberate design , then, of equal necessity, there 
must have been a deliberate designer —an older God , who, 
with a particular object in view, the begetting of Jesus— 
bestowed the male sex upon your God as the means neces¬ 
sary to the accomplishment of that object. It is a well- 
known fact that the means are always designed and provided 
after the nature of the object to be accomplished by them has 
been conceived , and with direct reference to the accomplish¬ 
ment of that object. If, then, as the Bible and all of its 
champions teach, the coming of Jesus in the human form 
upon earth was an object which had long been designed , then 
you are absolutely compelled to admit that the designer of 
that object —whoever he may have been—must also, of ne¬ 
cessity, have designed and provided , with direct reference to 
that object , the sex of your God , which was the only means 
by which that object could possibly be accomplished. You 
are certainly compelled to either admit this fact or to 
claim that, originally, God’s sex existed by pure accident, 
and without any use or design whatever ; and that it was 
a purely accidental afterthought that led him to utilize 
this purely accidental and utterly objectless possession im 
the begetting of Jesus. Which one of these two utterly 
ruinous conclusions will you accept ? 

And now, before closing this already long lecture, I 
wish to consider the nature and the effect of the vicarious 
atonement said to have been made for us by Jesus. As 
you doubtless all know, this so-called atonement is said to 
have been made by the death and other sufferings which 
are said to have been inflicted upon him in our stead. 

In the first place, then, I will say that, since it entirely 
releases the guilty from the punishments due to their 
crimes—since it entirely removes from them all the un¬ 
pleasant effects of their own transgressions—since it en¬ 
ables them to sin with perfect impunity, this method of 
atonement is both unjust and unwise. Leaving, as it does,, 
the wicked without any check to their wickedness, it neces¬ 
sarily leaves the good without any protection from that 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


765 


■wickedness. Far worse than this, however, is that other 
phase of this form of atonement, the punishing of the in¬ 
nocent in the place of the guilty. In doing this, it simply 
places a premium upon vice, a penalty upon virtue. What 
could be more outrageous in its nature, or more pernicious 
in its effects? What would you think of an earthly abso¬ 
lute monarch who, having found a band of robbers guilty 
of various capital offenses, should condemn his own inno¬ 
cent son to suffer death in their stead and at their hands, 
and who should then, in consideration of this atrocious 
murder, take these bloody monsters into special favor, and 
make them full heirs of all his possessions. Could any¬ 
thing but the foulest of all fiends act in this manner ? 
And does not the horribly blasphemous doctrine in ques¬ 
tion make just such a foul fiend of God ? Why could he 
not just as easily have pardoned men, and saved them 
from hell, without this murder as he could with it? Can 
the champions of the Bible explain how the committing of 
this one more murder could render men so much fitter for 
pardon and for heaven than they were before ? If they 
were fit for heaven at all, why did he require them to com¬ 
mit this murder before he would admit them to that bliss¬ 
ful abode ? If they were not fit for heaven at all, and 
were fit for hell, as they doubtless were, why did he not 
let them go to hell ? Why did he wish to fill heaven with 
inhabitants fit only for hell ? 

And what if men had refused or neglected to commit 
this murder? What if they had permitted Jesus to reach 
old age, and to die a natural death ? Would not such re¬ 
fusal, or such neglect, such humanity on their part, have 
resulted in the effectual thwarting of God’s entire plan of 
salvation, and in their own universal damnation? Since, 
according to all orthodox teachings upon the subject, God 
foreordained, and rendered unavoidable, the death of 
Jesus upon the cross, must he not, of necessity, have also 
foreordained, and rendered equally unavoidable, all the 
instrumentalities by which that death was to be brought 


766 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


about ? Did not God himself, then, virtually commit this 
atrocious murder ? Were the men involved in it anything 
more than the mere instruments with which he performed 
the murderous act ? And could a particle of either merit 
or demerit attach to these instruments on account of the 
use to which he put them ? 

Since, according to all the orthodox teachings upon the 
subject, Gods never die, that part of Jesus which suffered 
death, must, of necessity, have been his human part. In 
demanding and accepting the sacrifice of this part of 
Jesus, therefore, your God undeniably required and ac¬ 
cepted a human sacrifice. How much better, then, is he 
than are any other Gods who demand and accept human 
sacrifices ? If, before you were old enough to reason upon 
the subject, you had not been totally blinded by priest¬ 
craft, you could not fail to perceive that this is simply 
one of the most horrible doctrines of what you stigmatize 
as paganism. 

Besides its horrible injustice and inhumanity, this 
vicarious atonement always has proved, and, from its very 
nature, always must prove, an utter failure. If, in our 
stead, Jesus suffered punishment, then, of necessity, he 
must have suffered that very form and amount of punish¬ 
ment to which we had been condemned, and which we 
would certainly have had to suffer, if he had not thus suf¬ 
fered it in our stead. Had he suffered any other form of 
punishment, he would not have suffered in our stead at 
all; we not having ever been condemned to that form of 
punishment. If I be condemned to die, you cannot take 
my punishment upon yourself, and suffer in my stead, in 
any other way than by putting yourself fully in my place, 
and thereby suffering death, in the very manner in which 
I was condemned to suffer it, and at the very time at which 
I otherwise would have suffered it. These facts are too 
clear to require proof. 

To what form of punishment, then, had we been con¬ 
demned ? To physical death only, and to the necessity of 



THE MESSIAH OR SAYIOR. 


767 


laboring, during life, for our bread. When, at tlie time of 
the so-called fall of man, God passed sentence upon the 
human race, he did not even so much as hint at such a 
punishment as eternal damnation. Indeed, this latter 
form of punishment, now so extremely popular, does not 
seem to have been invented until several thousand years 
afterwards. We not having been condemned to any pun¬ 
ishment except that of physical death and of hard labor, 
there was evidently no other form of punishment from 
which we could possibly have been redeemed—no other 
form that Jesus could possibly have suffered in our stead. 

What punishment, then, did Jesus suffer? Physical 
death only ? And did he suffer this in our stead ? Did he 
redeem us from this form of punishment ? If he did, must 
not this have been the very form of punishment to which 
we had been condemned? And, having been thus re¬ 
deemed, must we not now be entirely exempt from all the 
evils of this form of punishment ? Why is it, then, that 
we continue to suffer physical death just the same as we 
suffered it before we received the benefit of this so-called 
redemption ? In what respect has this pretended redemp¬ 
tion improved our physical condition ? From what physi¬ 
cal ills are we now exempt which we would have had to 
suffer had we not been thus redeemed ? 

If, however, as most of the champions of the Bible now 
teach, the punishment to which we were condemned, had 
been eternal damnation, then, in order to suffer that pun¬ 
ishment in our stead, and to thereby release us entirely 
from the painful necessity of suffering it ourselves, Jesus 
must, of necessity, have been eternally damned. But was 
he thus eternally damned ? If not—if he did not suffer 
this punishment at all, or any other punishment equivalent 
thereto—it clearly follows that he never suffered any such 
punishment in our stead, and that his vicarious atonement 
never redeemed or released us from any such punishment. 
Undeniably, then, we are still as fully under the doom of 
eternal damnation as we ever were. To speak of Jesus as 


768 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


having been eternally damned, seems to you like blas¬ 
phemy. And yet, why should he not have been eternally 
damned ? Because he did not deserve to suffer such pun¬ 
ishment ? But did he deserve to suffer any punishments at 
all ? Did he deserve to suffer death and the other punish¬ 
ments which he did suffer ? Are we talking about what he 
deserved ? Are we not rather talking about wdiat men de¬ 
served ? And did men deserve eternal damnation ? If 
they did, and if they were condemned to suffer it, then 
would it not have been just as right and proper for him to 
be eternally damned in their stead, as it was for him to 
suffer death or any other punishment in their stead? 
Would not the principle involved have been exactly the 
same ? And would not the magnanimity and love exhib¬ 
ited by him, and the benefit conferred upon us, have been 
infinitely greater, had he volunteered to bear the unutter¬ 
able torments of eternal damnation in our stead, than they 
were, if, as you teach, he merely suffered, in our stead, a 
few moments of physical pain? 

Be all these things as they may, however, his death, so 
far as its conferring any benefit upon us was concerned, 
was indisputably a total failure. We suffer physical 
death now, just the same that we did before his death ; 
and we are just as promptly and just as thoroughly damned 
now as w r e ever were. What was it, then, from which he 
redeemed us ? Can you point out a single form of suffer¬ 
ing to which we are not just as liable now as we would 
have been had he never lived or died at all ? If you can¬ 
not do this, can you point out a single benefit that we have 
derived from his death ? 

The champions of the Bible boldly enough assert that, 
by his untimely taking off, Jesus put it into our own power 
to escape eternal damnation; that we have only to believe 
—and this we can rarely do—that he was the son of a God, 
and to claim the merits of his death, and presto ! the devil 
is cheated out of his just dues, and we, born in sin, and 
heirs of hell, are in process of becoming little angels with 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


769 


wings. I defy these champions, however, to adduce a par¬ 
ticle of proof to sustain this assertion, or to show that any 
less a percentage of the human race are now damned than 
would have been damned had there never been any 
such person as Jesus. How of those whom God, before 
the foundation of the world, predestinated to eternal dam¬ 
nation, and whom, consequently, he rendered utterly in¬ 
capable of attaining any other destiny? Did the death of 
Jesus put it into the power of these men to escape eternal 
damnation, and to thereby thwart God’s predestination 
and reverse the condition or destiny that God foresaw, or, 
rather, that he thought he foresaw, was to be finally theirs ? 
And as to those whom he predestinated to eternal salva¬ 
tion, and whom, consequently, he rendered utterly incapa¬ 
ble of attaining any other destiny, did they need the 
death of Jesus to enable them to escape a hell which God 
had made it utterly impossible for them ever to enter ? 
Besides this, the conditions upon which we are to obtain a 
share in the merits of the blood of Jesus are usually en¬ 
tirely impracticable to intelligent persons—to the only 
persons who are really worth saving. For want of faith, 
which, try as I may, I have no power to possess, or to ex¬ 
ercise, I myself, for one, must, according to all the orthodox 
teachings on the subject, be eternally damned. What 
good, then, has Jesus ever done me ; and under what obli¬ 
gations am I to love God and to praise him, for his mis¬ 
erable murderous plan of salvation, which leaves me, 
without any fault of my own, to writhe, and to scream—if 
I would scream—for ages without end, in the unutterable 
torments of fire and brimstone ? Let those love him and 
praise him to whom he has done some good. To me, he 
has done an infinite wrong. Without consulting either my 
wishes or my welfare, he has made me with such an organ¬ 
ization, and surrounded me with such influences, as render 
me utterly unable to believe certain absurd dogmas, and 
now, because of this inability, which he himself has fixed 
upon me, he dooms me to eternal damnation. If I owe 


770 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


him anything, then, for thus making me on purpose to 
damn me, is it love and praises, or is it hatred, abhorrence, 
and curses? If he were not more cruel than the foulest 
fiend of perdition, would he not, at least, return me to that 
condition of personal non-existence or annihilation, from 
which, without my consent, he called me, instead of thus 
compelling me to live forever, against my own wishes, in 
the fearful flames of an awful hell? 

I do not believe that Jesus died for us at all. We were 
never condemned to die in the manner in which he died ; 
and, as to death in general, we all still have it to die, just 
the same as before. Jesus was condemned to die on his 
own account, and for his own offenses, and not on our ac¬ 
count, or for our offenses. He died, too, not because we 
needed his death, but simply because he could not help 
himself, or because he had made up his mind to die thus, 
in order that, by becoming a martyr to his own teachings, 
he might strengthen those teachings, and render his own 
name immortal. Since his body was a mortal human body, 
he must finally have died anyway, just as other men die; 
and since he died only once, that once must, of necessity, 
have been for himself. 

Suppose, however, that he did die to save the whole 
human race, or even a respectable minority of them, from 
everlasting torments, what did he do more than any one of 
us would do under similar circumstances ? Is not history 
crowded with instances in which men have volunteered to 
suffer death simply to save from temporal destruction the 
inhabitants of a single city, or even the crew of a small 
whale boat ? Where is the father or the mother, even 
among savages, who, with an absolute certainty, as had 
Jesus, of entering immediately after death into the un¬ 
speakable joys of heaven, would not thus, a little earlier, 
abandon the sorrows of earth, to save even one beloved 
child from eternal burnings in fire and brimstone ? I do 
not believe that I overestimate the innate nobility and 
moral heroism of humanity, when I assert that almost any 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


771 


parent would die to save his or her child even to the 
present life. Do not we, then, deserve as much praise for 
what we would do if we had a chance, as does Jesus for 
what he did do when he did have a chance ? And since, 
according to all the orthodox teachings upon the subject, 
Jesus was God himself, what was lie doing in all these 
things, except acting out his oivn pleasure ? 

Besides all of these objections, a belief in this so-called 
vicarious atonement has a very pernicious influence upon 
the moral characters of those who entertain that belief. 
To these persons, this plan of salvation stands as an ever 
open doorway of escape from all the legitimate conse¬ 
quences of wickedness. Jesus having already, as they be¬ 
lieve, paid their sin bills in advance, they believe that they 
have nothing to do, in regard to those bills, but to claim 
the benefit of his act. In other words, they believe that 
all they have to do, in order to evade the payment of their 
sin bills, is to take advantage of this universal moral 
bankrupt law, and go clear. From childhood up, they are 
taught that a resort to this truly ignominious subterfuge is 
a highly meritorious act. Indeed, in their insolent bigotry r 
those who have gone through this ignominious form of 
moral bankruptcy are wont to claim that themselves are 
the only persons fit for heaven, and the only persons likely 
ever to enter therein. All other persons, they denounce 
as fit only for hell, and as certain to be at last cast 
therein. 

Believing, and correctly too, that, by means of this 
plan of salvation, they can just as easily evade the pay¬ 
ment of a large sin bill as they can that of a small one,, 
most persons who contemplate finally going into this ig¬ 
nominious form of moral bankruptcy are wont to run up 
as large sin bills as possible. Visit our prisons, and you 
will find that, with scarcely an exception, their inmates are 
all firm believers in this form of moral bankruptcy, and 
that they all intend, finally, to avail themselves of its pro¬ 
visions, and to thereby enable themselves to sneak, un- 


772 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


challenged, right into the joys unspeakable of heaven. 
So of those who die upon the gallows. As might be ex¬ 
pected, these persons are, almost invariably, firm believers 
in vicarious atonement. They almost invariably declare, 
too, often with their last breath, that, by means of this 
atonement, their murder-blackened souls are going to 
swing right from the gallows into the unspeakable joys of 
lieaven. And why should they not swing thus into 
heaven? Was not the first entry ever made into heaven, 
upon this highly demoralizing plan of salvation, made in 
this very manner by an executed criminal? Jesus does, 
indeed, seem to have been, as you teach that he w'as, the 
friend of sinners. But who ever heard of his being a 
friend to any except sinners ? 

All who profess to be journeying to the New Jerusalem 
upon means obtained without an equivalent, by going 
through this ignominious form of moral bankruptcy, 
clearly admit that they possess no means of their own— 
no means honorably obtained—no personal merit that 
would enable them to enter the pearly gates of that beau¬ 
tiful but visionary city. They clearly admit—often in 
direct words spoken to God in prayer—that, in strict jus¬ 
tice, they ought to be “ venting their fruitless cries beyond 
the reach of hope or mercy,” and that, without any per¬ 
sonal fitness for the place, they are going to heaven en¬ 
tirely on the merits of another person who was cruelly and 
unjustly put to death for their offenses. Admitting that 
these persons tell the truth about themselves—and of 
this I have not the slightest doubt—I am free to say that 
I would rather go to hell, like a man, and in the company 
of men, than to go to heaven, like a sneak, and in the com¬ 
pany of such a crowd of sneaks. Let me go where I may 
I will go as a man on my own merits. 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


773 


LECTURE TWENTIETH, 

THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR.—(CONCLUDED). 

Having, in my last lecture, fully considered the origin 
of the Christ idea, the conception and birth of Jesus, the 
nature of his vicarious atonement, etc. I propose, in my 
present lecture, to conclude the subject of. the Messiah or 
Savior, and close this whole course of lectures, by noticing 
the personal history of Jesus, and the so-called prophe¬ 
cies which are supposed to point to him as the Messiah or 
Savior of the world. In doing this, I shall take the Bible 
as I find it, having already, in preceding lectures, suffi¬ 
ciently considered the subject of its authenticity. 

Of the four evangelical writers of the New Testament, 
two, Mark and John, say not a word about the birth and 
the early life of Jesus. In their respective writings, they 
start out abruptly with an account of the baptism of 
Jesus, which took place when he was about thirty years 
of age. The other two, Matthew and Luke, differ so 
widely in their accounts, that, if it were not for the name 
of Jesus, we would hardly suspect that they were writing 
concerning the same individual. 

“ Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: 
When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before 
they came together, she was found with child of the Holy 
Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and 
not willing to make her a public example [by putting her 
to death publicly, according to law], was minded to put 
her away [or out of the way] privily. But while he 


774 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord ap¬ 
peared unto him in a dream [that is, he dreamed that an 
angel of the Lord appeared unto him], saying, Joseph, 
thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy 
wife : for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy 
Ghost ” (Matt, i, 18 - 20 ). 

On these three verses, may be said to rest the entire 
structure of the Christian Religion. If they contain 
nothing but truth, if there really ever was any such being 
as the Holy Ghost, if he really was a God, and if he really 
did, without anything to do it with, beget Jesus, then, in¬ 
deed, the Christian Religion is a true religion, whether it 
be the only true religion or not. If, on the other hand, 
there never was any such being as the Holy Ghost, if he 
was not a God, or if he did not beget Jesus; in short, if 
the contents of these three verses be false, then, of neces¬ 
sity, the Christian Religion must be, at best, a mere 
priestly imposition founded upon an absurd pagan fable. 
Let us, then, carefully analyze the language of these 
verses, and see to what that analysis will lead us. 

From the fact that Mary’s unpleasant condition was 
found out or detected , it is evident that she had been keep¬ 
ing it a secret. Had she herself made known her condition, 
it could not have been said of her that “ she was found 
with child.” And this effort at secrecy indicates, on her 
part, a consciousness of guilt, or, at least, a feeling of 
shame, or of fear. If her child had really been of the 
“Holy Ghost,” would she have experienced any such 
ieelings ? 

As to who it was that found out that she was with 
child, and as to how he found out this fact, the unknown 
author of Matthew has not seen fit to inform us. Under 
the circumstances of the case, the omission of this infor¬ 
mation is, to say the least of it, extremely unfortunate. 
In an ordinary case of pregnancy, in which the mere fact 
of a woman being with child is the only question involved, 
such an omission might be a matter of very little impor- 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


775 


tance. When, however, on pain of the most relentless 
persecutions in this world, and of endless and unutterable 
torments in the world to come, we are required to implicitly 
believe that Mary “was found with child of the Holy 
Ghost” a child begetter never before heard of, it becomes 
a matter of the utmost importance that all the facts in the 
case be so clearly stated, and so fully established, as to 
render unbelief in this ghost-baby story utterly impossi¬ 
ble. According to all the orthodox teachings upon the 
subject, we must believe the story or else be roasted, for 
billions of billions of ages, in the fearful flames of fire and 
brimstone, and then be no nearer the end of our torments 
than we were when they w r ere first inflicted upon us. How 
important it is, then, that we should believe the story! 
But how can we believe it, if we have no power to do so ? 
And whence comes the requisite power ? From the evi¬ 
dence alone. Of ourselves, we have no more power to 
believe without evidence than we have to fly without 
wings. Belief, in anything, is simply an effect of which 
the evidence in the case is the cause. If the cause be 
sufficient, the effect is bound to follow. If, however, the 
cause be insufficient, then it is utterly impossible for the 
effect to follow. To be damned, therefore, for not believ¬ 
ing, is simply to be damned for want of power—for want 
of power to experience within ourselves a certain effect, 
when no sufficient cause has been brought to bear upon us 
to produce that effect. Just as reasonably might God 
damn us for our want of power to fly without wings, as 
to damn us for our want of power to believe without 
evidence. 

Our will has nothing to do, in any case, with either our 
belief or our unbelief. We may wish to believe, or we 
may wish to fly, but our will cannot give us the power to 
do either the one or the other ; and, even if it could give 
us this power, are we any more responsible for the action 
of our will than we are for that of our stomach, our liver, 
or our kidneys? We believe certain things, whether they 


i 


776 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


be of a pleasant or an unpleasant nature, simply because 
we have no power to disbelieve them. We disbelieve cer¬ 
tain other things, whether they be of a pleasant or an un¬ 
pleasant nature, simply because we have no power to 
believe them. And we are no more responsible for the 
belief in the one case, and for the unbelief in the other, 
than the African is for being black, or the Caucasian for 
not being black. The whole thing depends entirely upon 
power, which we can neither create within ourselves, if we 
have it not, nor annihilate within ourselves, if we have it. 
As I have already shown, the power or the want of power 
to believe a certain thing depends entirely upon the evi¬ 
dence. If the evidence for a thing be conclusive, then, in 
spite of our will to the contrary, we are compelled to be¬ 
lieve that thing. If, on the contrary, the evidence against 
that thing be conclusive, then, in spite of our will to the 
contrary, we are bound to disbelieve that thing. If our 
beliefs and our unbeliefs were dependent upon our will, 
then, by simply willing to do so, we could either believe 
or disbelieve anything whatever. Each of my opponents 
could just as easily believe himself to be a virgin, and to 
be “with child of the Holy Ghost,” as to disbelieve it, or 
as to believe the same things of Mary or of anyone else. 
All things would become equally credible, and equally in¬ 
credible. All would depend upon the will alone. 

From the fact, then, that our beliefs and our unbeliefs 
are entirely involuntary on our own part, it is evident that' 
there can be neither merit nor demerit in either belief or 
unbelief. It is just as right and proper, therefore, to re¬ 
ward, or to punish, the one, as it is to reward or punish 
the other. The doctrine that “ he that believeth not shall 
be damned ” is a monstrously absurd and unjust doctrine. 

Of necessity, all evidence reaches us, and all belief is 
produced in us, through the medium of the five senses, 
seeing, hearing, feeling, etc. The best of all evidence, 
therefore, is that which reaches us through the medium of 
our own senses. Indeed, we rarely have the power to dis- 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


777 


believe that which we clearly see, hear, feel, etc., for our¬ 
selves. That evidence which we receive from another, we 
believe, or disbelieve, in proportion to the credibility, or 
the incredibility, of that which is testified, and our con¬ 
fidence, or our want of it, in the veracity of the witness. 
To be totally ignorant of the character for veracity of the 
witness, is simply to be totally ignorant of the truth or the 
falsity of that concerning which lie testifies. This is 
especially true, when, as in the case before us, the thing 
testified of is of a very improbable nature. 

What could be more improbable than that an utterly 
boundless, shapeless, bodiless, and, consequently, motion¬ 
less ghost should get a woman with child ? The cham¬ 
pions of the Bible themselves universally admit that such 
an event is, in the highest degree, improbable. Indeed, 
so very improbable do they regard the occurrence of such 
an event, at any time or in any country, that no amount 
of historical evidence can make them believe that, with the 
exception of the single case in question, any such event 
ever occurred in any age or in any country. No amount 
of historical evidence can make them believe that Chrishna, 
Buddha, Prometheus, and the dozen or more other so- 
called begotten Sons of God or Incarnations of Deity were 
any of them anything more than human beings. These 
champions of the Bible also find themselves utterly unable 
to believe that an event so extremely improbable will ever 
occur again—that this ghost will ever beget God any more 
sons. How, then, can they be so certain as they profess 
to be that an event so infinitely improbable ever occurred 
at all? 

Outside of this highly incredible story, and of others, 
equally incredible, founded upon it, or at least drawn from 
the same source, what do we know of this child-begetting 
Holy Ghost ? Do we really know anything more of him 
than we know of the Unholy Ghost, the Great Giascutis, 
or the Great Jumping Jingo ? As every one knows, who 
has ever informed himself in regard to the matter, the 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


778 

word ghost originally meant simply breath. The Holy 
Ghost, then, was nothing more nor less than holy breath, 
such breath as is breathed forth by holy persons. “ And 
when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto 
them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost ” (John xx, 22). So even 
at the present time, when a priest is ordained, this holy 
breath or Holy Ghost is breathed into him by the priests 
who ordain him. And can such breath beget children ? 
If it can, what can it beget them with ? And what might 
be the effect of a priest’s holy breath or holy ghost [for¬ 
merly written thus without capitals] upon one of our own 
women ? Might it not have the same effect upon her that 
it is said to have had upon Mary ? Indeed, is it not ex¬ 
tremely probable that many women, who would otherwise 
have been first-class virgins, have become prospective 
mothers while inhaling the truly dangerous breath of their 
priests? “A word to the wise,” etc. 

Be all this as it may, however, we have here a ghost, 
never before seen or heard of, at least in his present 
capacity of child-begetter, abruptly introduced upon the 
stage, as a star actor in this grand farce, to play the role 
of father to a poor unmarried woman’s baby—to subject 
her to almost certain disgrace and to probable death, and 
to thus set a very immoral example to other individuals of 
the male sex. Who, then, and what was this ghost? 
Whence did he come ? What were his antecedents ? In 
what form did he approach the young woman ? Under 
what circumstances did he approach her? Was it during 
the day when she could see him, or during the night when 
she could not see him? Was she acquainted with him? 
If not, how could she know that he was the Holy Ghost? 
How could she know that he was a ghost of any kind ? 
With what instrumentality did he perform the act of copu¬ 
lation—the act of begetting the child in question ? Had 
he a body ? If not—if there was nothing about him that 
she could see, feel, or hear—how could she know that he 
was of the male sex ? How did he manage to transfer to 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


779 


lier womb the life-germ from which her child sprang ? If 
she could neither see him nor feel him, how could she 
know that he was getting her with child ? How could she 
know anything at all about him ? And if he had a body 
sufficiently substantial to be seen and felt*—sufficiently 
substantial to hold such sexual intercourse with her as 
was absolutely necessary in order to get her with child— 
how could she be certain that he was not a man playing 
the role of the child-begetting ghost in question? Were 
not such vile tricks frequently played upon extremely pious 
and credulous women? 

Admitting, however, that this young woman was act¬ 
ually gotten with child by a ghost, how much better or 
more natural was her act than that of the woman who is 
gotten with child by a man ? How would the champions 
of the Bible like it if this same old bachelor ghost, or 
some other ghost of the same kind, should get their young 
daughters with child in this same manner ? And is he 
not just as likely to get young women with child now as he 
ever was ? Has he ever lost his virile powers, or promised 
never again to beget a child in so immoral a manner ? If 
not, what protection have our young females against his 
insidious modes of seduction? So long as this scene is 
laid in a distant land and a remote age, we may be de¬ 
lighted with it. Let it be brought home to ourselves, how¬ 
ever, and then we would a little rather the libidinous old 
ghost in question would beget his young ghosts upon the 
daughters of our neighbors, and not upon our own. Could 
not such a ghost stir up a “ hell-of-a-time ” in almost any 
of our families ? How many of our good orthodox sisters 
would be willing to be thus embraced and made pregnant 
by so unnatural a thing as a ghost? Would not every 
pure and natural woman prefer to have a live man, a good 
and loving husband, for the father of her children? Would 
she not rather her children should be young men and 
young women than that they should be young ghosts and 
young ghostesses ? And would you think any more highly 


780 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


of one of your unmarried neighbor ladies who, a la mode 
Marie, should bear a child to a ghost, whom she could not 
love and whose wife she could not hope ever to be, than 
you would of one who, a la mode natura, should bear a 
child to a yotmg man whom she could and did love, and 
whose wife she could and did hope sometime to be ? 

The author of Matthew does not have Mary herself set 
up any claim to ghostly paternity for her unborn babe. 
He represents her as being entirely silent in regard to the 
-whole matter. As we now have his account, he is made to 
say that “ she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.” 
The “ Holy Ghost ” part of this quotation, however, is 
pronounced by many Bible critics to be an interpolation 
or forgery, and to form no part of the story as originally 
written. In preceding lectures, I have sufficiently shown 
the correctness of the conclusion to which these critics 
have come. Indeed, a belief in its correctness is almost 
forced upon us by the language that immediately follows 
these words: “Then Joseph her husband, being a just 
man, and not willing to make her a public example , was 
minded to put her away privily .” From this, it is clear 
that Joseph believed, or at least pretended to believe, Mary 
to be guilty of adultery, a crime for which he, as her in¬ 
jured husband, had a legal right “ to make her a public 
example,” by putting her to death in a public manner, and. 
for which “ to put her away [or to death] privily ” or in a. 
private manner, was deemed a less cruel form of punish¬ 
ment. He could not, however, have believed her to be 
thus guilty—thus worthy to be made “ a public example,”’ 
or even to be “ put away privily,” unless he had believed 
that she had held illicit intercourse with a man. Had she 
really been “ found with child of the Holy Ghost ,” would 
he ever, for a moment, have associated the thought of guilt 
with her condition, or of inflicting upon her any form of 
punishment? And would he have needed to pretend to 
thus believe her guilty and to think of punishing her? Is 
it not evident, then, that she was merely “found with 



THE MESSIAH OR SATIOR 


781 


child,” and that Joseph very naturally supposed her to be 
with child of a man ? Is it not evident that the “ Holy 
Ghost” part of the finding in her case was an after¬ 
thought—an addition to the story made at a later time ? 
At any rate, if the Holy Ghost figured at all in the report 
of the case, as he first heard it, Joseph evidently regarded 
that part of the report which related to his gliostsliip as 
utterly unworthy of belief. It did not create in his mind 
even a doubt in regard to Mary’s guilt, if he really be¬ 
lieved her guilty at all. He still fully believed, or at least 
pretended to believe, her to be worthy to suffer death as 
“ a public example.” He never, for a moment, thought— 
at least he never for a moment talked—of such a thing as 
letting her go unpunished. He conveyed the idea that he 
would certainly “ put her away,” or, as we would now ex¬ 
press it, out of the way, by putting her to death according 
to the law. He intimated, however, that in the kindness 
of his heart, he felt disposed to lighten, as far as pos¬ 
sible, the horrors of this terrible punishment by hav¬ 
ing it inflicted upon her in a private manner, thus sparing 
her the additional horrors of a public execution. 

“ But while he thought on these things,” or pretended 
to think upon them, while he was still revolving or pretend¬ 
ing to revolve in his own mind whether, as an example or 
warning to other women, he should punish her in a public 
manner, or should listen to the pleadings of his own com¬ 
passionate heart, and, in a private manner, inflict upon 
her the punishment prescribed by the laws of his country, 
he had a dream, or pretended to have one, in which he 
seemed to see an angel, and to hear him say that Mary 
was with child of the Holy Ghost. Being an extremely 
superstitious man—a believer in dreams, in ghosts, in 
pregnancy produced by ghosts, etc.—he at once accepted, 
or pretended to accept, his own dream—the creation of 
his own wide-awake or partially dormant brain—as real 
information, coming from God, for the vindication of 
Mary’s character. Upon the reception of this supposed 


782 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


information, therefore, lie at once dismissed all thought, 
real or pretended, of guilt on Mary’s part, and resolved 
that, instead of punishing her, as he had intended, or as 
he pretended to intend, he would marry her. 

If, then, the Holy Ghost part of the finding in Mary’s 
case was made and reported by the same party that found 
her with child, why did Joseph need to be thus informed 
in a dream that she was with child of the Holy Ghost ? 
If, previous to his dream, he, and the neighbors generally, 
possessed the very same information on the subject that 
he seemed to receive in the dream; if the dream made no 
addition whatever to his information, or theirs—and it 
certainly did not if she had already been “ found with 
child of the Holy Ghost ”—why did the dream make so 
complete a change in liis opinions, or his pretended opin¬ 
ions, concerning Mary’s guilt, and in his proposed course 
of conduct toward her? If, previous to his dream, he, 
and the neighbors also, had known that she was “ with 
child of the Holy Ghost” and if the Holy Ghost part of 
the findings in her case had already been made and re¬ 
ported, he, at least, must have known this—would he have 
thought of such a thing as making “ her a public example,” 
or even of such a thing as putting “ her away privily ? ” 
If he would, why did his dream, which brought him not a 
particle of new information on the subject, so entirely 
change his intention ? Why did he not still think to either 
“ make her a public example,” or “ to put her away 
privily ? ” The only possible object of making “ her a 
public example ” would have been to deter other women 
from committing the same offense which she was believed 
to have committed, and for which she was being punished? 
But did Joseph regard the act or condition of becoming 
with child of the Holy Ghost, as an offense demanding the 
same punishment as that of adultery ? Did he not, on the 
contrary, regard that act or condition as a mark of divine 
favor? And, while regarding it thus, would he have 
either desired or expected, by making Mary “ a public ex- 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


783 


ample,” or even by putting “ her away privily,” to have 
deterred other women from becoming, in like manner, 
“with child of the Holy Ghost? ” 

Since, then previous to his dream, Joseph certainly did 
believe, or did pretend to believe, that Mary was a guilty 
woman—an adulteress, worthy to be put to death, or 
otherwise punished, and totally unfit to be his wife—is it 
not evident that she had simply been “ found with child,” 
the same as any other pregnant woman, and that the limit¬ 
ing phrase “ of the Holy Ghost ” is an interpolation or 
forgery, added, at a later date, for the purpose of making 
the report of the findings in Mary’s case, harmonize with 
the report of Joseph’s dream? At any rate, is it not 
evident that, previous to his own dream, Joseph gave not 
the slightest credence to the Holy Ghost part of the find¬ 
ings in Mary’s case, if that part had ever been made and 
reported? Must not that part of the report, then, have 
been founded upon evidence of a far less satisfactory 
nature than is that of a mere dream? If the dream was 
real, it was necessary to change his own belief. If it was 
pretended, it was necessary to change the belief of the 
neighbors. In neither case was the report sufficient to 
create belief. It had to be backed up by a dream. 

As we now have it, however, the Bible declares that Mary 
“was found with child of the Holy Ghost” The question, 
then, naturally arises, who found her in that condition, 
and how did he knoiv that her unborn babe was “ of the 
Holy Ghost ? ’ ’ Were there any peculiar symptoms by 
which he could unerringly distinguish a case of Holy 
Ghost pregnancy from a case of ordinary or man preg¬ 
nancy? If not, how could he possibly know that this was 
a genuine case of Holy Ghost pregnancy ? And if there 
were any such peculiar symptoms, must they not, of 
necessity, have been learned from previous cases of Holy 
Ghost pregnancy? Will my opponents, therefore, be so 
kind as to mention some of those previous cases ? Will 
they also be so kind as to give the name of the expert 


784 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


who detected Mary’s delicate condition, and who so 
promptly pronounced hers a case of Holy Ghost pregnancy? 
Do they know anything at all in regard to his character 
either for veracity or for skill as a Holy Ghost detective ? 
May he not have been himself the father of Mary’s unborn 
child? Who else would have been so likely as her seducer 
to be the first to know that she “ was with child ? ” To 
whom else would she have been so likely to appeal for aid 
in time of her great misfortune ? And who else would 
have been so likely to find her with child “ of the Holy 
Ghost ? ” Under all of these circumstances, could his 
utterly unsupported testimony have been of any value 
whatever? We have seen that, extremely credulous as he 
was in regard to such a form of pregnancy, Joseph, whose 
opportunities for knowing the facts and the probabilities 
in the case, the character of the expert, etc., were undeni¬ 
ably far better than are our own, did not believe a word of 
this pretended expert’s report concerning the Holy Ghost 
part of the findings on this celebrated case. This leaves 
us with nothing at all except Joseph’s dream upon 
which to base the ghostly paternity of Mary’s baby. In 
my last lecture, however, I proved that this dream was 
totally worthless, that even if it was real it was of no 
more value as evidence than would be a similar dream if 
now achieved by one of ourselves in regard to some un¬ 
fortunate young woman of our own neighborhood. 

So far from having Mary thus “ found with child ”— 
so far from having Joseph thus believe her to be guilty, or 
at least, to pretend to so believe until he could achieve a 
dream for the benefit of the neighbors—so far from having 
him thus think or pretend to think of punishing her—so 
far from having him thus learn or pretend to learn in a 
dream that the Holy Ghost was responsible for Mary’s 
condition, Luke has the whole matter, from the very be¬ 
ginning, satisfactorily understood between herself and her 
friends. Further on we will notice Luke’s account. Joseph 
probably knew all the time that he was himself the ghost 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


785 


that had got Mary into trouble, but he preferred throwing 
the blame upon the Holy Ghost. This would be more 
satisfactory to the neighbors. Hence, no doubt, his dream. 

In Matt, ii, 1-3, we read : “ Now when Jesus was born 
in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, be¬ 
hold, there came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 
saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for 
we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship 
him. When Herod the king had heard these things, he 
was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.” 

As the beginning of a very sensational romance, this 
might do very well. When, however, it is claimed to be 
authentic history, it is certainly open to very grave criti- 
•cisms. Who were those so-called wise men that came 
from the east, how many were there of them, and on whose 
authority were they called wise men ? In what did their 
supposed wisdom consist? From how far east of Jerusa¬ 
lem did they come? Were they Jews or foreigners? If 
Jews, why does the author so pompously declare that they 
came from the east ? Did the fact that they came from 
the east render them any better, any wiser, or any more 
honorable ? Judea extended only a few miles east of Jeru¬ 
salem—too few for the inhabitants on its eastern border 
-to differ, in any material respect, from the rest of its in¬ 
habitants. What advantage, then, was there in their 
coming from the east? If they came from beyond the 
•eastern border of Judea, they must have come from some 
of the wild idolatrous tribes of Arabia. But were any of 
these tribes ever noted for wise men? Since they left 
home after the birth of Jesus, and reached Bethlehem 
while he was still in fche manger, in which he lay only a 
few days, they could not have come from beyond Arabia. 
They must, therefore, have been either Jews or Arabs. 

If they were Jews, was it any mark of wisdom in them 
to go thus strolling about the streets of Jerusalem, saying, 
Where is he that is born King of the Jews,” and declaring 
that they had “ come to worship him ? ” Could “ wise 


786 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


men,” from less than a day’s journey east of Jerusalem,, 
have supposed that the people of that city already knew 
of the obscure birth in a manger at Bethlehem of Mary’s- 
illegitimate child, and that they had already acknowledged 
him as the “ born King of the Jews ? ” Would “ wise men,” - 
if Jews, have dared to come thus boldly to Jerusalem and 
proclaim to Herod his successor to his throne—a suc¬ 
cessor, too, of ignoble birth? Would “wise men,” if 
Jews, have dared thus openly to declare that they had 
“ come to worship ” this new-born pretender to the Jewish 
throne? Would not such conduct have constituted high 
treason and have been punished as such ? Besides all 
this, were the Jews ever in the habit of worshiping tlieir 
kings? If, when no one knew of the birth of any new 
king—if, simply because some unmarried woman of the 
lower class had borne a child in some old garret, cellar, or 
manger, a child which, as yet, did not seem to differ in any 
respect from any other male child—a band of vagrants 
should go thus strolling about the streets of London, say¬ 
ing, “ Where is he that is born king of England ? ” and de¬ 
claring that they had come from the east some fifteen miles 
“ to worship him,” would they be regarded as “ wise men?” 
Would they not rather be regarded as fit subjects for a 
lunatic asylum ? 

If those so-called “ wise men ” were not Jews, of what 
nationality were they? As I have already shown, they 
must have belonged to some neighboring tribe of Arabians. 
But which one of these tribes ever produced men noted 
for wisdom? And would “wise men” from any of those 
tribes have dared to come thus openly to Jerusalem, and 
proclaim to the king, to the Homan governor, and to the 
whole people, a successor to the Jewish throne ? What 
means had they with which to sustain such a proclama¬ 
tion, or to save themselves from condign punishment for 
having been unwise enough to make it? Besides this, 
would “wise men” from any of those idolatrous tribes 
have wished to “worship” a king of the Jews? Were 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


they ever in the habit of indulging in any such form of 
“worship?” Did they not always hate the Jews, kings 
and all, and did they not always have an abundance of ob¬ 
jects of worship in their own country ? 

Besides rail of these things, that star also requires a 
passing notice. Since it appeared “ in the east,” and since 
those so-called “ wise men ” were journeying toward the 
west, how did it manage to go before them, to Jerusalem 
and Bethlehem, as, in the ninth verse, we are assured that 
it did. In order to thus go before them, would it not have 
had to appear in the west ? And how did those so-called 
“ wise men ” know that this particular star indicated the 
birth of a new king of the Jews? Was this particular 
star, or one exactly like it, in the habit of appearing thus, 
at the birth of each new king of the Jews, and at no other 
time ? If it was not, then how could these persons, “ wise 
men ” though they may have been, have possibly known 
that this star indicated any such thing as they pretended 
that it did ? If it was in the habit of thus -appearing on 
each of these occasions, why was it never .‘noticed on any 
other occasion, and why did none but the so-called “ wise 
men ” in question notice its appearance, or understand its 
import, on the present occasion? And since these men 
had this wonderful star to guide them unerringly to the 
spot “ where the young child was,” why did they need to 
stop at Jerusalem and go strolling about the streets, say. 
ing, “Where [the d-1] is he? ” etc. Had the star tem¬ 

porarily deserted them while in the city ? 

Besides all this, since there are only two classes of 
stars, fixed stars and planets, that star must, of necessity, 
have been either a fixed star or a planet. From the fact, 
however, that it moved before these so-called “ wise men,” 
it evidently could not have been a fixed star. Of necessity, 
then, it must have been a planet. But what planet was 
it ? What was its name ? In what kind of an orbit did it 
revolve ? At what distance was it from the sun ? What 
was its rate of motion ? Had it any moons, and if so, how 



788 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


many? What force caused it to move toward the spot 
“ where the young child was,” and what force caused it to 
stand still directly over that particular spot? Was that 
spot in the line of its orbit ? When was it created, and 
for what purpose? Of what was it composed? And 
what finally became of it? Who can answer these fail- 
questions ? 

If all of these things were true, is it not rather strange 
that Luke does not say a word about them ? As I have 
already said, he does not leave Mary, like a guilty woman, 
to be “ found with child,” nor does he leave her innocence 
to be established by the extremely uncertain chance of 
Joseph’s dreaming that her child was “of the Holy 
Ghost.” He has the angel Gabriel say to her in advance : 
“ And, behold, thou slialt conceive in thy womb, and bring 
forth a son, and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be 
great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest [You 
will notice that while he is to actually “be great,” he is 
only to “be called the Son of the Highest ”]: and the Lord 
God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. 
[This promise was never fulfilled.] . . . The Holy Ghost 
[which usually dwelt in some man and used his organs] 
shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall 
overshadow thee [What does this mean?] : therefore also 
that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called 
[only called , you see] the Son of God ” (Luke i, 31-35). 
And Luke has Mary communicate all of this very valuable 
information, in a very satisfactory manner, to her relatives 
and friends. He does not have her in any danger of being 
made “ a public example.” When Jesus is born, Luke, in 
place of Matthew’s “ wise men from the east,” merely has 
a lot of ignorant shepherds from the immediate neighbor¬ 
hood visit him. The star he wisely omits entirely. And 
yet, if so wonderful a star had actually appeared, is it 
credible that he would thus have left it entirely un¬ 
noticed ? 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


789 


“ And being warned of God in a dream [that is, having 
dreamed that they were “ warned of God ”] that they 
should not return to Herod [as he had ordered them to re¬ 
turn, and as they had doubtless promised that they would 
return], they departed into their own country another 
way ” (Matt, ii, 12). The parties referred to here were the 
same so-called “ wise men ” of whom I have just been 
speaking. From the fact that “ they departed into their 
own country,” it becomes evident that they did not belong 
to the country of the Jews in which they then were. Of 
this matter, however, I have already said enough. I no¬ 
tice this passage only because of the dream that is men¬ 
tioned in it. Did all of those men, at the same time, 
dream that dream ; or did only one of them dream it for 
the whole company? If all of them, at the same time, 
dreamed it, would not so remarkable a coincidence have 
certainly been noticed by our author? And if only one 
of them dreamed it, how could the others know that it 
was from God ? How many of you would believe one of 
your own neighbors, if he should claim to have a dream, 
very common-place in itself, from God? Indeed, how 
could the dreamer himself know that his dream was from 
God ? Had dreams that came from God any peculiar 
characteristics by which they could be distinguished from 
other dreams ? And was this dreamer certainly acquainted 
with those peculiar characteristics? 

From the thirteenth to the fifteenth verses of the same 
chapter, we learn that, being warned of God in a dream, 
Joseph, with Mary and her child, fled into Egypt, where 
he remained until after the death of Herod. This flight, 
taking place as it did immediately after the departure of 
the so-called “wise men,” must, of necessity, have taken 
place from Bethlehem, where Jesus was when those 
men left him. This, you plainly see, renders it utterly 
impossible for Joseph and his family to have visited 
Jerusalem, after the birth of Jesus, until after their return 
from Egypt. Indeed, if they ever visited Jerusalem with 


790 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Jesus at all, their visit must have been made many months, 
if not many years, after their return from Egypt. This 
fact we learn from the twenty-second verse, in which we 
are informed that, on coming out of Egypt, Joseph was 
afraid to return into Judea; and that, having, as usual, 
dreamed that he was warned of God so to do, he turned 
aside into Galilee and abode at Nazareth. 

The reason assigned by Matthew for this flight into 
Egypt is that Herod, jealous of the incipient fame of 
Mary’s young baby, wished to have it put to death. So 
determined, indeed, is Herod said to have been to accom¬ 
plish the destruction of the child Jesus, that, in order to 
be sure and not miss him, he “sent forth, and slew all the 
children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts 
thereof from two years old and under.” Some twenty 
thousand children are estimated to have been massacred 
on this occasion. Why Herod “ slew all the children . . . 
from two years old and under,” we are not informed. To 
me it seems that he might safely have spared the females. 
Was he afraid that Jesus might be a female, and that this 
female might become king of the Jews ? And did not the 
so-called “ wise men” show their wisdom with a vengeance 
when, by their silly inquiries for the new-born king of the 
Jews, they excited the king to commit this horrible 
massacre ? 

The reason assigned by Matthew for Joseph’s being 
afraid to return into Judea is that he feared the life of 
Jesus might be endangered by Archelaus, who had become 
king of the Jews in place of Herod his father, who died 
while Joseph was in Egypt. This fear must have remained 
during the life-time of Archelaus, or, at least, until Joseph 
became satisfied that this king had no designs against 
the life of Jesus. In any view of the case, therefore 
Jesus must have been several years old when he first en¬ 
tered Jerusalem, if indeed he ever entered it at all before 
he began his ministry, which he did when about thirty 
years of age. And now let us see how this account liar- 


THE MESSIAH OR SAYIOR. 


791 


monizes with that given by the equally inspired author of 
Luke. 

“ And when eight days were accomplished for the cir¬ 
cumcision of the child, his name was called Jesus, which was 
so named of the angel before he was conceived in the 
womb. And when the days [forty in number] of her puri¬ 
fication according to the law of Moses were acccomplished 
they brought him to Jerusalem, to present him to the 
Lord” (Luke ii, 21, 22). Further on, we learn that, on 
this occasion, sacrifices for Mary’s purification were offered 
in the temple ; that Jesus was publicly presented to the 
Lord; that the venerable Simeon and the prophetess Anna 
had a great rejoicing over him; and that, when all these 
things were accomplished, Joseph and his family departed, 
not by flight at night into Egypt, but openly and peaceably 
to their own home in Galilee. We also learn that, so far 
from being afraid to return into Judea, Joseph and his 
family were accustomed to go up to Jerusalem every year 
to the feast of the passover. 

At the very same time, then, that Matthew has Joseph 
and his family fleeing into Egypt, to save Jesus from de¬ 
struction at the hands of Herod, Luke has them remain 
quietly at Bethlehem for over a month, and then go pub¬ 
licly to Jerusalem, Herod’s own capital. At the very same 
lime that Matthew has Jesus hid away in Egypt, Luke has 
him openly offered to the Lord in Jerusalem. At the very 
same time that Matthew has Herod butchering “all the 
children of Bethlehem and all the coasts thereof,” for the 
express purpose of insuring the destruction of Jesus, Luke 
has Jesus either remaining safely at Befhleliem, or jour¬ 
neying safely with his parents, in the most public manner, 
to Jerusalem. At the very same time that Matthew has Jo¬ 
seph afraid to return into Judea at all, Luke has him, with 
his family, go up to Jerusalem at least once every year. 

Since it is utterly impossible for both of these accounts 
do be true, it devolves upon the champions of the Bible to 
;show which one of them is true. If they should decide in 


792 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


favor of Matthew, then it becomes their duty to clear up- 
the story concerning the massacre of the infants of Beth¬ 
lehem by Herod. Why does no other writer notice this 
truly notable event? Was not this during the Augustan 
age, when able writers—and some of them residing at 
Jerusalem—were numerous ? Was not Judea at that time 
a Roman province ? Would not the Roman government 
have called Herod to account for so atrocious a crime ? Is 
it at all credible that so horrible a deed was ever commit¬ 
ted in a civilized country, under the very eyes of many 
writers, and yet only one of them, the unknown author of 
the book of Matthew, ever notice it? Finally, is this story 
anything more or less than a mutilated version of the 
story of Kansa and Chrishna of India? 

After bringing Jesus back from Egypt, Matthew ab¬ 
ruptly drops him, and then just as abruptly reintroduces 
him, at the age of thirty years, as a star actor in the grand 
farce that gave rise to the Christian Religion—as a worker 
of miracles, and as a preacher of what, to most of th& 
Jews, seemed new doctrines. Why this long silence, this 
utter failure to notice anything at all in nine-tenths of the* 
entire life of the hero of his story ? Is it at all credible 
that a person whose birth had been heralded by the sud¬ 
den appearance of a wonderful star in the eastern heavens, 
and by many other remarkable phenomena; is it at all 
credible that a person who, while yet an infant, had been 
worshiped as the “ born king of the Jews,” by “ wise men 
from the east,” whose birth had caused Herod and all 
Jerusalem to be troubled, and some twenty thousand other 
infants to be butchered—is it at all credible, I ask, that 
this person passed into oblivion so perfect that all his 
friends and neighbors—even those who knew all the cir¬ 
cumstances of his birth—came to believe that he was Jo¬ 
seph’s son and only an ordinary person? Is it at all 
credible that, for thirty years, such a person should neither 
say nor do anything worthy of record ? 

In regard to this same long period in the life of Jesus,, 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


793 

Luke is almost as reticent as is Matthew. Luke, however, 
does mention one event which he says occurred when 
Jesus was twelve years of age. This was a disputation 
which Jesus had with the doctors of divinity in the temple. 
In this disputation, he is said to have astonished every¬ 
body by the unheard-of wisdom of his replies ; and, when 
his parents reproved him for having, without their permis¬ 
sion, left them, he is said to have replied: “ How is it 

that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my 
Father’s business?” After this, Luke drops him for 
eighteen years. 

And now, let me ask, if, at the age of twelve years, he 
had to be about his “Father’s business”—if, at that early 
age, he astonished everybody by the wonderful beginning 
wdiich he made in that “business,” is it at all credible that 
he at once abandoned that “ business,” and, for eighteen 
years, did nothing to show that he was, in any respect, 
superior to other young men ? Why are all his pretended 
biographers so utterly silent in regard to this long period 
of his life ? Were they all ignorant of the history of that 
portion of his life, or did that history contain something 
which, if known to the world, would be fatal to the claims 
of the Christian Church ? May not this extremely sus¬ 
picious silence be because Jesus spent those unaccounted- 
for years, or at least a portion of them, in the great school 
of philosophy, at the neighboring city, Alexandria, learning 
like any other student, the wise teachings of Confucius, 
Buddha, Chrishna, and others of the world’s great moral 
philosophers ? Be this as it may, he taught no doctrines 
which had not been already taught by some of these great 
men—no doctrines that were not, during the very time in 
question, taught in the great school to which I have re¬ 
ferred. He often used almost the very words of Chrishna 
and other great teachers who had preceded him. Where, 
then, and when, did he learn all of these things ? 

It is true that, without going to Alexandria, Jesus 
might have learned all the doctrines that he ever taught. 


794 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED 


All of those doctrines were taught by the Essenes 
-and the Tlierapeuts, both of which sects existed among 
the Jews, at the time of which I am speaking. Jesus 
is generally supposed to have belonged to the one or 
the other of these sects. At any rate, it is certain 
that he lived the life of an Essene, or, rather, of a Thera- 
peut, and that his early followers were called Therapeuts, 
and not Christians. Indeed, the name Christian was 
finally forced upon them in derision by their enemies. 
Those who deny these facts, and who claim that Jesus 
originated a new religion and gave it a new name, simply 
expose their own ignorance of the subject or their own 
want of common honesty; and, at the same time, make 
liars of many if not of all of the early Christian writers. 

Jesus lived and died a Jew. He never was a Christian 
Since he never went out of Judaism, no one can be his 
follower who does go out of it., Justin Martyr, who is 
said to have been for a long time the companion of John, 
the beloved disciple of Jesus, says : “For in saying that 
all things were made in this beautiful order by God, what 
do we seem to teach more than Plato? When we teach a 
general conflagration, what do we teach more than the 
stoics ? By opposing the worship of the works of men’s 
hands, we concur with Menander, the comedian; and by 
declaring the Logos the first-begotten of God, our Master 
Jesus Christ, to be born of a virgin, without any human 
mixture, and to be crucified and dead, and to have risen 
again, and ascended into heaven, we say no more in this, 
than what you say of those whom you style the sons of 
Jove.” Thus, from this great father, who knew the 
Christian Keligion in its infancy, we learn that so far 
from being a new religion, as most of my opponents would 
fain have us believe that it was, Christianity was nothing 
more than a mere compilation of old pagan and Jewish 
doctrines that had been taught for many ages. 

St. Augustine, the greatest of the Latin fathers, re¬ 
senting the charge made by his enemies that he taught a 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


795 


new religion, says: “What is now called the Christian 
Religion has existed among the ancients, and was not ab¬ 
sent from the beginning of the human race, until Christ 
came in the flesh; from which time the true religion, 
which had existed already, began to be called Christian; 
and this in our days is the Christian religion; not as hay¬ 
ing been wanting in former times, but as having in later 
times received this name.” Were it necessary, I could ad¬ 
duce much more testimony to the same effect from many 
others of the early Christian writers. 

If, then, Jesus was a God, and, without ever having 
learned anything at all, possessed a full knowledge of all 
things, why did he never teach anything new ? Why did 
he never teach anything that mere men had never been 
able to find out or to teach before him ? Had men already 
found out and taught all that there was of any value to 
find out or to teach ? And why did he wait till he was 
thirty years of age before he began to teach anything at 
all ? Did he, or did he not, possess as much knowledge 
and as much power at three years of age as he did at 
thirty ? If he did, then why did he not begin teaching 
and performing miracles at three years of age or earlier ? 
If all of his works had been performed before he was 
three years of age—before he had had either time or op¬ 
portunity to learn them of men—would they not have been 
a thousand times more convincing to mankind than they 
were when they were finally performed by a middle-aged 
man who had had a plenty of time and opportunity to 
learn all of these things of other men? Should not a 
God have been a little more successful than Jesus was? 
Should he not have been a little less dependent for his 
success upon the blind faith—the disgusting gullibility or 
the drunkenness of his audiences ? 

If, on the other hand, he did not know as much, and 
did not possess as much power at three years of age as he 
did at thirty, if his knowledge and his power were ever 
thus, like those of men, susceptible of being increased, 


796 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


then, of necessity, they were as fully finite as are those of 
men; and, by no possibility, can that which is finite ever 
become infinite. On this hypothesis, Jesus, like any other- 
man, or any other finite being of any kind, had, of neces¬ 
sity, to learn ail of his doctrines before he could teach 

them, and all of his so-called miracles before he could per¬ 
form them ; and, since many years would be required for 
the thorough learning of all of these things, we can readily 
understand why it was that he did not appear before the 
public till he was of the ripe age of thirty years. We can 
also just as readily understand why it is that all of his 
pretended biographers are so totally silent in regard to so 
large a portion of his life. They very well knew that it 
would never do for the world to know that he had spent 
over half an ordinary lifetime learning the doctrines 
which he afterwards taught, and the feats which he after¬ 
wards performed. If the people knew these facts to-day, 
what would become of the Christian Church, and the 
power, the bread, and the butter of her vast armies of 
useless priests ? And have not the priesthood always held 
that when ignorance pays better than knowledge, it is folly 
to render the people wise ? 

In John xiv, 12, we read : “ Verily, verily, I say unto 

you, He that believetli on me, the works that I do shall 
he do also; and greater works than these shall he do.”' 
From this, it is clear that mere men, such as the believers 
on Jesus all are, can perform as great miracles as were 
ever performed by Jesus himself. The so-called miracles,. 

then, which he is said to have performed, were, by his own 
positive declaration thus made, no proof at all that he was 
himself anything more than a mere man. This fact being 
thus established, I shall notice only a few of those so- 
called miracles. The text which I have just quoted also 
proves that all those of my opposers who profess to be be¬ 
lievers on Jesus, but who, nevertheless, are unable to per¬ 
form all the works which he performed, are nothing more nor 
less than hypocrites and impostors. Their only possible* 


THE MESSIAH OR SAYIOR. 797 

means of escape from this grave charge is to prove that 
•Jesus lied when he used the language above quoted. 

In speaking of the crucifixion of Jesus, Matthew says 
that, from the sixth to the ninth hour, there was darkness 
over all the land; that there was an earthquake ; that the 
vail of the temple was rent in twain ; that the rocks were 
rent; and that the bodies of many saints arose from their 
graves, went into the cit}-, and appeared unto many. None 
of the other gospel writers, however, say a word about any 
of these things. How are we to account for this strange 
silence? Do not the champions of the Bible all claim that 
some of these other writers, if not all of them, were 
present at the crucifixion of Jesus ? If, then, any such 
wonderful phenomena had actually appeared on that oc¬ 
casion, would not some of these writers—these eye-wit¬ 
nesses—have been sure to notice them ? And would not 
the Jews and the Romans, upon seeing these wonderful 
phenomena, have become believers on Jesus? Far gone 
as I myself am in unbelief, the beholding of such phe¬ 
nomena would certainly make a firm believer of *me. 

But did these things, and especially the rising of the 
bodies of the saints, actually occur? If they did, who 
were those saints whose bodies thus so unceremoniously 
left their graves, in which, like good and well-behaved 
-corpses, they ought to have remained, and went into the 
city to frighten women, children, and nervous old men? 
I was not aware that the Jews ever had any saints; and, 
'Christianity not being yet established, it was certainly 
rather too early for Christian saints, lively though they 
may be even after they are dead and buried, to come pop¬ 
ping up in so abrupt a manner. How many of those 
bodies were there ? How long had they been buried and 
how deep ? How did they manage to get up through the 
earth that had been placed upon them ? Who saw them 
rise and counted them ? Who saw them go into the city ? 
Who saw them after their arrival in the city ? How were 
;they received by their former friends ? What did they do 


798 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


while in the city ? What excuse did they offer for their 
very uncorpsely conduct? Were they real living organ¬ 
izations composed of flesh, blood, and bones ? Had they 
lungs, stomachs, intestines, sexual organs, etc.; and did 
these organs in them perform the same functions respec¬ 
tively that they perform in other living human bodies? 
Were these the same emaciated bodies that had been laid 
aside at death? If not, what bodies were they? Were 
they anything more than phantoms ? Were they clothed 
or naked? If clothed, where did they get their clothes, 
and how ? Did they buy new clothes, or were their old 
clothes resurrected together with themselves ? Did those 
bodies have any souls or spirits in them? If they did, 
whence did those spirits come ? Had they, too, like the 
bodies, been resting in the graYe, or did they merely hap¬ 
pen to be strolling down from heaven just at the time they 
were needed? And what finally became of those lively 
defunct saints? Did they remain among men, engage in 
business, and suffer death a second time, or did they, just 
as they then were, flesh, blood, bones, clothes, and all, 
manage somehow, without even a scaling ladder, to clamber 
up to heaven ? These are all fair, pertinent, and important 
questions, but who dares even try to answer them ? 

Admitting, however, that all of these wonderful and ex¬ 
tremely improbable phenomena actually did appear on the 
occasion in question, what do they prove in regard to the 
nature of Jesus? Absolutely nothing at all. I do not 
suppose that any of the champions of the Bible will 
claim that the dying Jesus himself, in propria persona, pro¬ 
duced any of these phenomena. By whom, then, were 
they produced? Evidently by God himself. I do not 
suppose that any of the champions of the Bible will deny 
this fact. But could not God just as easily have produced 
these phenomena on the occasion of the death of a man as 
he could on that of the death of a demi-god ? I am aware 
that my opponents declare that God would not, and, con¬ 
sequently, did not, ever produce any such phenomena on 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


799 


the occasion of the death of a mere man. But when did 
God condescend to inform these gentlemen that he never 
would, and, consequently, never did, produce any such 
phenomena on the occasion of the death of a mere man? 
Is not their declaration founded entirely upon a pure and 
unwarrantable assumption? And is such an assumption 
of any value at all in an argument ? Does it not simply 
show the utter desperation to which those are driven who 
make use of it? Could not I, with equal propriety, extend 
it a very little and assume that God never would, and, con¬ 
sequently, never did, produce any such phenomena on the 
occasion of the death of any one whatever? 

Matthew says that, on a certain occasion, two men met 
Jesus, who cast out of them a legion of devils. As to what 
devils are, I do not pretend to know; but, from the fact 
that those of whom we are now speaking conversed intel¬ 
ligently with Jesus, in good Hebrew, they must have been 
intelligent beings like men. How many legions of these 
devils remained in the two men after this one legion had 
been ordered out, we are not informed. We are informed, 
however, that, at their own request, the legion that were 
then ordered out were permitted to enter into a herd of 
swine that chanced to be feeding not far away. We are 
also informed that, so soon as these poor persecuted devils 
were all comfortably established in their nice and warm 
new quarters, the swine took it into their silly heads to 
run down a steep place into the sea and drown themselves. 

Luke says that, on this occasion, there was only one 
man met Jesus, and that he came out of the city, and not 
out of the tombs, as Matthew has it. He says, too, that 
the swine were drowned in a lake, and not, as Matthew 
has it, in the sea. He also says that this astounding 
miracle was performed in the country of the Gadarenes, 
and not, as Matthew has it, in that of the Gergesenes. 
And now, since these two conflicting accounts cannot pos¬ 
sibly both be true, will the champions of the Bible be so 
kind as to inform us which one of them is true, and how 


;800 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


they know that it is true ? If this monstrous hog-and- 
devil story be at all credible, what is there incredible in 
the tales of Gulliver, Sinbad the Sailor, or Jack the Giant 
Killer? 

A legion contained about five thousand individuals. 
How large, then, could those devils have been and still 
have found an abundance of room and of necessary sup¬ 
plies, for ;so vast a number, inside the body of a single 
man or of a single hog, and that, too, without perceptibly 
increasing his size or impeding his motions? Of what 
form were they ? In what part of the man or the hog did 
they reside? Whence did they come? What form of 
government did they have inside the body of that man or 
of that hog? Who was their chief ruler? At which end 
of the man or of the hog was their port of entry? Why 
did they, for their place of abode, select the body of a 
living man or a living hog? Was it to obtain food or to 
keep warm? When ordered out of the man, what was 
their order of march—by twos, by fours, or by platoons ? 
Were they infantry or cavalry? Were they all males, or 
were both sexes represented among them? If they were 
all males, what was the use of their having any sex at all ? 
Do not my opponents, in all things, perceive marks of de¬ 
sign, and proofs of the existence of a great designer? 
What, then, was the design of the sexual organs of those 
poor devils, when there were no devilesses for them to use 
those organs upon ? Who designed those worse than use¬ 
less appendages ? If both sexes were represented among 
them, did they breed and have little devils, or were their 
organs designed for pleasure alone ? What effect upon the 
pork market had their entrance into the swine ? When 
the swine were drowned, what became of the devils ? Were 
they, being unused to water, drowned also? If not, why 
were they never again heard of ? 

And now, let me ask, can you be so totally blinded by 
priestcraft—so utterly bereft of reason and common sense 
—as to believe that a whole nation of intelligent beings 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


801 


ever lived thus, and carried on a regular government—none 
but regular governments used the legion—inside the body 
of a single man or of a single hog ? If you can believe 
this monstrous story, what is there too absurd for you to 
believe, if, like this story, it were only incorporated into 
your religion ? And thus it is with almost all the balance 
of the so-called miracles said to have been performed by 
Jesus. Take almost any one of them, and we find that, as 
told by any one of the four evangelical writers, its absurdity 
sets reason, science, and common sense utterly at defiance, 
and that it is, moreover, plainly contradicted, or, in some 
other way, set at naught by some of the other three of these 
writers. 

Matthew says that, on a certain occasion, Jesus healed 
two blind men. Speaking of the same occasion, Luke says 
that only one blind man was then healed. Do they both 
tell the truth, and must we believe both accounts or be 
eternally damned for our unbelief? Matthew says that 
Judas took his own life by hanging himself. The author 
of Acts declares that Judas died from the effects of a fall 
which seemed to have been entirely accidental. Are both 
of these accounts true? Did poor Judas, who simply 
acted the part assigned him by God in this grand farce, 
actually suffer death at two different times, in two different 
places, and from two different causes ? Seeming to be a 
little perplexed by-the utterly irreconcilable accounts given 
of this matter, Dr. Clarke very wisely suggests that Judas 
probably died of diarrhoea. Matthew says that Judas 
gave back to the priests the money that he had received 
for betraying Jesus, and that they bought the potter’s field 
with it. The author of Acts, however, informs us that this 
account is utterly false in every particular—that Judas 
kept the money in question, and, with it, bought himself a 
field. Can both accounts be true ? Mark says that Jesus 
was crucified at the third hour. John puts the crucifixion 
after the sixth hour. Matthew declares that the thieves 
who were crucified with Jesus both reviled him. Luke 


802 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


declares that only one of them reviled him, and that the i 
other reproved the reviler for his conduct. Can both ac¬ 
counts be worthy of our belief ? 

John says that the first visit to the sepulcher of Jesus 
was made by Mary Magdalene alone, who, like a brave 
little woman, came while it was yet dark. Matthew says 
that this first visit was made by two women w T lio prudently 
waited till the day began to dawn. Mark says that this 
first visit was made by three women who still more pru¬ 
dently waited till about the rising of the sun. Luke says 
this first visit was made, by five or more women who rather 
imprudently came very early. And are we, indeed, to be 
eternally damned if we find ourselves unable to believe all 
four of these utterly irreconcilable stories ? 

John says that when his one woman arrived at the 
sepulcher, she saw nothing at all. Matthew says that 
when his two women arrived, they saw an angel of the 
Lord sitting down on the outside of the sepulcher. Mark 
says that when his three women arrived, they saw a young 
man sitting down on the inside of the sepulcher. Luke 
says that when his five or more women arrived, they saw 
two men standing up. And now, in order to escape dam¬ 
nation, how many of these utterly irreconcilable stories 
are we obliged to believe ? 

Mark says that, after his resurrection, Jesus appeared 
first of all to Mary Magdalene alone, and that it was she 
who made known to the disciples and others the fact that 
he had arisen from the dead. Dealing, as usual, in twos,. 
Matthew has Jesus make his first appearance to two 
Marys, and has them proclaim the glad news of his resur¬ 
rection. Are both of these accounts true? These two 
writers agree in having Jesus make his first post-mortem 
appearance at Jerusalem. Luke, however, contradicts 
them both by having Jesus make this first appearance to 
two men near Emmaus, a village some distance from Jeru¬ 
salem. Which account is true? Matthew says that, after 
his resurrection, Jesus first met his disciples on a moun- 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


803 * 


tain in Galilee. Luke has this first meeting take place in 
a room at Jerusalem. Are both accounts true? Luke 
has Jesus make his final ascent into heaven from Bethany. 
Mark has him make it from a room in Jerusalem. The 
author of Acts has him make it from Mount Olivet, 
Matthew has him make it, or at least take his final leave 
of his disciples, from a mountain in Galilee. John has 
him do this at the sea of Tiberias. And now, if any one 
of these five utterly contradictory accounts be true, which 
one is it, and what proofs have we that it is true? 

These are only a few of the many contradictions and 
absurdities that fill the books that pretend to give a true 
account of the sayings and doings of Jesus—of the books 
upon which the Christian Religion is essentially founded. 
In the eyes of all truly intelligent persons, however, these 
few r are sufficient to utterly condemn the books in which 
they are found. 

Since his whole claim to Godsliip depended upon his 
resurrection from the dead, and his ascension into heaven, 
why did not Jesus perform these his crowning acts in the 
sight of all the people? By so doing, he would, in a fevr 
moments, have done a thousand times more to convince 
the world of his divinity than he ever did by all of his 
other acts ; a thousand times more than has ever been 
done, in nineteen hundred years, by his mighty armies of 
priests, aided though they have nearly always been by 
those most powerful of all persuaders, the sword, the 
dungeon, the rack, and the stake. Why, then, did he, after 
his resurrection, go slipping furtively about as if he were 
afraid or ashamed to be seen? Was he ashamed of hav¬ 
ing been executed as a convict, or was he afraid of being 
arrested, tried, convicted, and executed ? Why did Ire 
never appear to any except a few persons who were all 
deeply interested in having the world believe that he had, 
indeed, arisen from the dead? Were not these deeply in¬ 
terested parties the very ones whose testimony in such a 
case was of the least possible value ? 


804 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


The champions of the Bible may claim that, on one oc¬ 
casion, Jesus did appear to over five hundred persons at 
once. But what proof have we that he ever did any such 
thing ? Who were those five hundred persons ? How 
many of them ever testified that they had seen Jesus on 
that occasion, and who heard their testimony ? Paul 
alone notices this wonderful appearance, and he says that 
the five hundred and more who witnessed it were brethren. 
But were the brethren sufficiently numerous to assemble 
in so large congregations ? Why does no one but Paul no¬ 
tice this wonderful appearance ? And did he himself be¬ 
lieve that any such appearance had ever been made ? If 
his own testimony be of any value, he certainly did not. 
Long after this appearance is said to have taken place, and 
after he had heard all the testimony on the subject that 
tliei*e was to hear, he was, according to his own account, 
so thorough an unbeliever in the resurrection of Jesus that 
he verily thought he was doing God service when he was 
helping kill as many as possible of those who were believers 
in it. If he himself had been a believer in that resurrection, 
as he certainly must have been, if he believed that, after 
his crucifixion, Jesus had appeared to over five hundred 
of the brethren at one time, he certainly could not have 
thought that he was doing God service in putting to death 
other men for believing the same thing. Besides this, if 
he had believed that any such appearance of the resur¬ 
rected Jesus had ever been made, would it have required ' 
a special miracle, as he declares that it did, to convert 
him to a belief in a doctrine that Jesus had risen from the 
dead ? Prom all this, it is clear that, if Paul ever heard 
any report to the effect that, after his resurrection, Jesus 
had appeared unto over five hundred of the brethren at 
one time, he did not himself believe a word of that report. 
And since he, by his own admission, did not believe that 
report when coming directly from the lips of the pretended 
witnesses themselves, how can he expect us to believe it 
on mere hearsay testimony, and especially that of one single 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


805 

individual himself who plainly intimates that he occasion- 
ally engaged in the holy occupation of lying in order that 
the glory of God might the more abound ? May not this 
account of the appearance of Jesus to so many of the 
brethren be one of the very God-glorifying lies to which 
he refers ? Who can say that it is not ? 

Nearly all the nations of the east have equally well 
authenticated accounts of the ascension into heaven of 
some one or more of their own distinguished personages. 
Indeed, this purely pagan idea that persons may and some¬ 
times do thus ascend bodily into heaven is still an ex¬ 
tremely popular one with nearly all persons who are 
sufficiently ignorant to believe that there actually is, as 
taught by the Bible, a heaven—a solid sky or firmament, 
fixed, like an inverted blue bowl, over a flat and stationary 
earth. Since science, however, has totally dissipated this 
solid sky or firmament—the only heaven that either pagans 
or Christians ever had—all truly intelligent persons have, 
as a matter of course, come to regard the idea of such 
bodily ascensions into heaven as too ridiculous for serious 
discussion. What is heaven now, and where is it ? 

In order to be up, as the Bible and its champions all 
teach that it is, from every part of the earth’s surface, 
heaven must, of necessity, like the atmosphere, surround 
the earth on all sides; and must, also, of equal necessity, 
like the atmosphere, accompany her in all her revolutions 
around the sun. In other words, heaven, like the atmos¬ 
phere, must, of necessity, be simply an invisible append¬ 
age of the earth—a kind of envelope or hollow sphere 
whose center coincides with the center of the earth, and 
whose motions coincide with those of the earth. And is 
this the only heaven into which Jesus ascended ? That it 
is, we learn from the fact that it is utterly impossible to 
locate, or even to conceive of the location of, any other 
heaven, and from the additional fact that, when ascending 
into heaven, Jesus passed right upward from the earth, 
and for some time remained distinctly visible immediately 


806 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


above those from whom he had just parted. The earth is 
known to move forward in her orbit at the almost incon¬ 
ceivable velocity of more than a thousand miles every 
minute—a velocity somewhat greater than that of an or¬ 
dinary rifle ball. If, then, Jesus and the heaven into 
which he w r as ascending had not partaken of the earth’s 
motion, would he have been visible at all? Would not the 
earth have instantly carried his friends onward out of 
sight of him, and would he not, in a few moments, have 
been left, far behind the earth, dangling in empty space ? 
Must he not, then, be still in this same earth-enveloping 
heaven, within a few miles of the earth’s surface, riding 
with us around the sun ? And must not the old God, his 
putative father, be also in this same heaven and enjoying 
fhis same ride ? And are not we, too, in the hollow in¬ 
terior of this same heaven ? Being already in heaven, 
then, why need w r e talk of going to heaven ? 

Since, then, our own planet is thus accompanied, as it 
certainly must be, by its own peculiar heaven, and its own 
peculiar Gods, is it not fair to assume that every other planet 
is, in like manner, accompanied by its own peculiar God 
.and its own peculiar heaven? Why should our own little 
planet alone be blessed with these special accompaniments? 
And, if they have no heaven of their own in which to con¬ 
tinue their existence, what becomes of the righteous in¬ 
habitants of other planets after they die ? Do they all 
come to our heaven? Would it not be utterly impossible 
for those at an infinite distance from our earth ever to 
reach our heaven ? Besides this, if our God has charge of 
an infinite number of worlds and systems of worlds, why 
should he have selected our own little world, and it alone, 
as the place of his abode, and as the final dwelling-place 
of all the saints of this entire infinitude of mighty worlds? 
Why should he have given his only begotten son to die for 
the salvation of the inhabitants of our own little world 
alone, and why are none but the inhabitants of our own 


THE MESSIAH OR SAYIOR. 807 

world ever mentioned in his holy word as having anything 
at all to do either with us or our heaven ? 

If, however, heaven he not thus inseparably connected 
with the earth and her motions, where is it located, and of 
what does it consist? Does it belong within the solar 
system ? If it does, is it a planet or a comet, and in what 
respect does it differ from any other planet or any other 
comet? In what respect is it better than the earth ? If 
it is neither a planet nor a comet, what is it ? How large 
is it ? Why can we not discover it with the telescope ? 
Does it revolve around the sun, or does it, unlike all other 
bodies, remain absolutely stationary in space ? If it re¬ 
mained thus stationary, would it not, long before this, 
have been left at a very inconvenient distance behind by 
the sun, which, with his whole retinue of worlds, moves 
forward in his orbit at the rate of about thirty thousand 
miles an hour ? If it moves with the sun, between the 
orbits of which two of the planets is it situated? How 
does it retain its relative position in the solar system and 
in space? How much farther do those have to travel to 
reach it who start when we are in that part of the earth’s 
orbit which is farthest from it, than do those who start 
when we are in that part of the earth’s orbit which is 
nearest to it ? How much longer does it take the former 
to reach it than it takes the latter ? And what means of 
conveyance have we for journeys so inconceivably im¬ 
mense ? 

If, on the other hand, heaven be not in the solar sys¬ 
tem, in what system is it, and how far is it from where we 
now are ? Why should a, preference have been given to 
that system ? In what respect is it better than the solar 
system ? And how long does it take us to reach that im¬ 
mensely distant heaven? 

When we come to examine the matter in the light of 
reason, science, and common sense, does it not become 
clear as the noon-day sun that the whole idea of a local 
heaven rests entirely upon the now utterly exploded idea 


808 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


of a solid sky or firmament standing, like an inverted 
bowl, over a flat and stationary earth ? In order, then, to 
retain your heaven, are you not compelled also to retain 
your flat and stationary earth, your solid sky, etc. ? Ask 
your priests to clearly define the location of the heaven 
they preach, and you will at once discover that they know 
no more about any such place than they know about the 
native country of the Great Giascutis or of the Great 
Jumping Jingo. Better have them, then, locate heaven 
before you pay them any more money for those buncombe 
speeches which they call sermons. 

In their desperation, however, the champions of the' 
Bible boldly assert that Jesus and his works were fore¬ 
told by the prophetical writers of the Old Testament. 
The truth of this assertion, however, I deny in toto, and 
defy these champions to point out a single passage in the 
Old Testament which, when taken with its context, can be 
fairly so construed as to make it even remotely refer to 
Jesus. 

“ Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring 
forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which 
being interpreted is, God with us ” (Matt. 1 , 28). This is- 
the first, the plainest, and by far the most important of all 
the passages quoted, in the New Testament, from the Old, 
and claimed to be prophecies of Jesus. If, then, I fully 
demonstrate, as I certainly shall, that this passage has no 
reference to Jesus, what can you hope from any of the 
other passages in question ? 

The language which Matthew professes to quote, but 
which, according to what you will find to be his invariable 
custom, he grossly misquotes, was spoken by Isaiah to 
Ahaz, king of Judah. At the time it was spoken, Aliaz 
w r as greatly troubled because of the approach of the united 
forces of his two great enemies, the king of Israel and the 
king of Syria. Isaiah, therefore, assuming to be God’s 
mouth-piece, as Balaam’s ass is said to have been on a 
former occasion, undertook to encourage Ahaz to make a. 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


809 


manly defense, by assuring him that the two kings whose 
approach was so troubling him should not prevail against 
him; and that, in a short time, their own kingdoms should 
be rendered desolate by the king of Assyria. 

In order to make Aliaz believe these very comforting 
assurances, Isaiah informed him that God would confirm 
them by a certain sign. This sign, Isaiah then proceeded 
to describe in the following language : “ Behold, a virgin 

shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Im¬ 
manuel. Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know 
to refuse the evil, and choose the good. For before the 
child shall know to refuse the evil, and choose the good, 
the land that thou abhorrest shall be forsaken of both her 
kings ” (Is. vii, 14-16). 

The emergency w r hich. rendered the sign necessary being 
immediate, the sign itself, to be of any value, had, of 
course, to be immediate also. So far from being able to 
wait seven hundred and fifty years, as our priests would 
fain have us believe that he was expected to wait, for Mary 
and her son to be signs of the things predicted, Ahaz had 
to have a sign before the close of the war in which, at that 
very time, he was engaged. Without any delay, therefore, 
Isaiah himself proceeded to prepare the sign which he 
himself had proposed. God does not seem to have had 
anything to do in the matter. His manner of preparing 
the sign, Isaiah describes as follows: “And I took unto 
me faithful witnesses to record, Uriah the priest, and 
Zechariali the son of Jeberechiali. And I went unto the 
prophetess [his own wife, Mrs. Isaiah]; and she conceived, 
and bare a son. Then said the Lord to me, Call his name 
Maher-shalal-hash-baz, For before the child shall have 
knowledge to cry, My father, and my mother, the riches of 
Damascus, and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away 
before the king of Assyria ” (Is. viii, 2-4). 

Having thus himself selected his own child to be a sign 
on this occasion, just as he himself had doubtless selected 
his own other children to be signs on former occasions, 


810 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Isaiah boasts: “ Behold, I and the children whom the 

Lord hath given me, are for signs and for wonders in Israel 
from the Lord of hosts, which dwelleth in Mount Zion” 
(Is. viii, 18). The famous virgin in question, then, was no 
other than Mrs. Isaiah, the prophet’s own wife, who was 
already the mother of several children, and who, like a 
sensible woman and a good wife, conceived of her own 
husband, and not, as our priests labor to make us believe 
that Mary did seven hundred and fifty years afterwards, of 
an old bachelor ghost. Mrs. Isaiah’s child, too, was a pure 
human being, and not, as Mary’s child is said to have been, 
-a hybrid monstrosity, half man and half ghost. In order 
that the world might be sure that no ghost had anything 
to do with this achievement, Isaiah, as he informs us, 
very prudently had two faithful witnesses present to see 
and to record that he himself, in propria persona, begat the 
child in question. Had the ghost, who, as our preachers 
would fain have us believe, afterwards begat Jesus, used 
similar precaution, and had two faithful witnesses present 
to see and to record that he himself actually did beget the 
child in question, and that no man had anything to do in 
the matter, would not the world be a great deal more cer¬ 
tain than they now are that the child was, indeed, the 
literally begotten son of the said ghost? 

The child, then, and the only child, to which this so- 
called prophecy refers, was, as you see, begotten and born 
just as are all other children—begotten and born, too, 
seven hundred and fifty years before the birth of Jesus. 
Besides this, the child in question was never called Jesus. 
He was called Maher-shalal-hash-baz. As to his mother’s 
being a virgin, that amounts to nothing at all. Every 
Bible critic knows that, in ancient times, and especially 
among the Jews, the word virgin was not restricted, as it 
now usually is, in its application, to those women only 
who hftd never sexually known a man, but was applied, in¬ 
discriminately, to all virtuous women, and even to virtuous 
men, whether they were married or single. A true wife— 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR 


811 


a good mother—was just as much a virgin as w r as the 
woman who had never known a man. Although Mrs. 
Isaiah had certainly known her own husband, yet, being a 
virtuous woman—a true wife—she was still properly called 
a virgin. All of our best educated and most intelligent 
ministers of the gospel know these things to be facts, but 
it is not to their interest that the people should be equally 
well informed. Hence the general ignorance of the people 
in regard to these matters. 

All that this pretended prophecy of Jesus amounts to, 
therefore, is, that in order to encourage his king, Isaiah 
staked his reputation as a seer or fortune-teller upon the 
result of the war in which, at that very time, the king was 
engaged. If Isaiah proved a correct fortune-teller or seer, 
then, before a child, which was to be immediately begot¬ 
ten, could be born, and could be able to say father and 
mother, that is, within three years at most, Ahaz would see 
his enemies utterly overthrown. Unfortunately, however, 
for Isaiah’s reputation as a fortune-teller or seer, and also 
for the safety of Ahaz and his people, the sign utterly 
failed. So far from being driven out of their own king¬ 
doms, as Isaiah predicted that they would be, those two 
Trings beat Ahaz in battle, killed over 120,000 of his men, 
and carried away as captives over 200,000 women and 
children. These facts we learn from the twenty-eighth 
chapter of 2 Chronicles. This pretended prophecy, then, 
had no reference whatever to Jesus, and was, moreover, an 
extremely poor guess. And thus crumbles, like sand, the 
main prophetic prop of that monstrous priestly imposition, 
the Christian Religion. 

Under the circumstances with which he was sur¬ 
rounded, Ahaz could not be otherwise than filled with 
anxiety, and overburdened with business cares. Messen¬ 
gers from the front were constantly arriving with the most 
fearful intelligence. The invading forces were far superior 
to his own, and defeat at their hands involved either death 
or slavery to both himself and his people. All around him 


812 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


were uproar and confusion, and lie, to whom all looked for 
safety, was himself beginning to tremble under the ter¬ 
rible panic that had seized upon his people. As Isaiah 
himself very forcibly expresses it, the king’s “ heart was 
moved, and the heart of his people, as the trees of the 
wood are moved with the wind.” To encourage him, 
therefore, under these peculiarly trying circumstances, 
Isaiah, who seems to have been a man remarkable for 
coolness, hopefulness, and courage, simply staked his own 
reputation as a fortune-teller or guesser at future events 
upon the prediction which I have just noticed. 

This is substantially the story as told by Isaiah himself ; 
and, when thus told, it is both natural and reasonable. 
When told, however, as our priests tell it, what could be 
more unnatural or more unreasonable ? Although we pay 
them to teach us the truth, which they always profess to 
be both able and willing to teach, these priests labor hard 
to make us believe that, amid the general alarm aad con¬ 
fusion of the occasion, when the king was overburdened 
with business and anxiety, Isaiah, like an old idiot, came 
and began to prate to him about a young woman who, 
seven hundred and fifty years afterwards, without being 
married, was to have a baby begotten by an old bachelor 
ghost. They labor hard to make us believe that this in¬ 
corrigible old idiot even went so far in his folly as to pro¬ 
pose this supremely ridiculous seven-hundred and-fiftv- 
year-ghost-baby affair as a sign by which Ahazwas to know 
what was to be the result of the war in which, at that very 
time, he was engaged. Can two intelligent priests, while 
preaching this monstrous nonsense, look each other in the 
face without laughing ? 

Do you really believe that Isaiah was fool enough to 
come, at such a time, to prate to the king about this ghost 
and its supposed offspring? And would the king have 
listened to any such nonsense? Would he have cared a 
fig who was to have a baby, seven hundred and fifty years 
after his own time, or who was to be the father of that. 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


813 


baby ? How would it be now, if, on tlie eve of a great 
battle, some old idiot should come to prate such nonsense 
to the commander of a great army ? 

After describing various circumstances connected with 
the crucifixion of Jesus, John says: “For these things 
were done that the scripture should be fulfilled, A bone of 
him shall not be broken.” Here we are gravely informed 
that the language concerning the bone had been spoken 
prophetically concerning Jesus; that it was his bones 
that were not to be broken ; and that, for the express pur¬ 
pose of fulfilling this prophecy, and of thereby condemn¬ 
ing themselves, his executioners refrained from breaking 
his bones. 

The scripture which John here professes to quote, but 
which, in fact, he grossly misquotes, is found in Ex. xii, 
46, and, with a portion of its context, reads as follows: 
“ In one house shall it be eaten; thou slialt not carry 
forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house : neither 
shall ye break a bone thereof.” This language, you per¬ 
ceive, is mandatory and not prophetic. It was spoken by 
Moses, not concerning Jesus, whom the Hebrews were 
never commanded to kill and eat, and who did not live till 
about 1,500 years afterwards, but concerning the ram 
which each family of the Hebrews were commanded to 
kill, to roast, and to eat, within a few days, at what was 
called the feast of the passover. As I have already said, 
John grossly misquotes the language of this command. 
By changing the gender of the pronoun, and both the 
mood and the tense of the verb, he has entirely changed 
both the meaning and the construction of the whole passage, 
and thus rendered his pretended quotation a vile imposi¬ 
tion or forgery. 

No sane man, I suppose, will attempt to deny that all 
portions of the command in question refer to the same 
thing. If, then, any portion of that command, such as 
the prohibition to break his bones, refers to Jesus, then, 
of necessity, all the other portions, such as those that en- 


814 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


join the killing, the dressing, the roasting, and the eating 
of him, must refer to him also. By simply using the word 
Jesus, therefore, in place of the word lamb, we will have 
the meaning of the whole command—of the whole proph¬ 
ecy, if you prefer this term—according to the rendering 
given of it by John and by the Christian Priesthood gen¬ 
erally. “ Your Jesus shall be without blemish, a male [a 
female Jesus would never answer your purpose] of the first 
year [not an old ram or Jesus of thirty-three years]: ye 
shall take it out from the sheep or from the goats: and ye 
shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same 
month: and the whole assembly of the congregation of' 
Israel shall kill it in the evening. And they shall take of 
the blood, and strike it on the two side posts, and on the 
upper door post of the houses, wherein they shall eat it. 
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, 
and unleavened bread; -and with bitter herbs they shall 
eat it. A foreigner, and a hired servant shall not eat 
thereof. In one house shall it be eaten ; thou shalt not 
carry forth aught of the flesh abroad out of the house: 
neither shall ye break a bone thereof.” Here are six 
verses; and, in order to make them apply to Jesus, I 
have changed only one word in them all. In order to 
make the last clause alone, of the last verse, apply to 
Jesus, John, however, makes five changes of words, one 
change of gender, one of mood, and one of tense—eight 
changes in all in a clause containing only seven words. 
By this abominable mutilation, he undertakes to change a 
plain command into a mystic prophecy, a common scrub 
ram into a Almighty God! And the whole Christian 
Priesthood have united in their wicked efforts to palm off 
this monstrous imposition upon the ever gullible people. 

And now. let me ask, does not all of this language ap¬ 
ply to Jesus, just as much as does the last clause of the 
last verse ? In order, then, to have the whole pretended 
prophecy fulfilled, should not John have had Jesus roasted 
and eaten as well as exempted from having his bones 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 815 

broken? Thus falls another of the prophetic props of 
Christian priestcraft. 

Speaking of Joseph, Matthew says : “ When he arose, 

he took the young child and his mother by night, and de¬ 
parted into Egypt: and was there until the death of 
Herod : that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the 
Lord by the prophet, saying, Out of Egypt have I called my 
Son ” (Matt, ii, 14, 15). The language which Matthew 
here falsely pretends to quote, is found in Hos. xi, 1, and 
reads as follows : “ When Israel was a child, then I loved 

him, and called my son out of Egypt.” The son, then, 
that was called out of Egypt, was the Hebrew nation, and 
not Jesus. This fact is made still more clear by Ex. iv, 
22, 23, in which we read: “ And thou shalt say unto 
Pharaoh, Thus saith the Lord, Israel is my son, even my 
first-born. And I say unto thee, Let my son go, that he 
may serve me.” What could be plainer than this? 

x4.s I have already stated, Matthew grossly misquotes 
all the language that he professes to quote from the Old 
Testament. In the present case, he has not deviated from 
his uniform custom. Speaking, as he does, of a past 
event, Hosea very properly uses the past or historical 
tense. Matthew, however, changes his meaning, by quot¬ 
ing him in the prior-present or perfect tense. By writing 
the word son with a small s, Hosea clearly shows that he 
does not mean to apply the word to the deity, all the ap¬ 
pellations of which begin with capitals. In his pretended 
quotation, however, by writing the word son with a capital 
S , Matthew falsely represents Hosea as applying this word 
to the deity. What are we to think of the honesty of a 
•writer who, to deceive his readers, thus habitually muti¬ 
lates and changes all the language that he professes to 
quote ? And what are we to think of our preachers who, 
almost unanimously, sustain him in this despicable course 
of fraud? 

From all of this, it is clear that, if the scripture in 
question refers to Jesus, he must have been the whole 


816 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


Hebrew nation, and not a single individual only. The 
champions of the Bible, however, may claim that, in the 
loins of an ancestor of that generation, Jesus was called 
out of Egypt, with the Hebrew nation, and that, conse¬ 
quently, the language in question does apply to him. This 
may all be true, if he was a mere man, and had a male an¬ 
cestor among the Hebrews who were called out of Egypt. 
If, however, as all of these champions profess to believe, 
Jesus never had a human father, then he could not pos¬ 
sibly have been thus called out of Egypt. Indeed, if, in 
the time of Moses, God called his son out of Egypt, then 
the language in question, being written long after that 
time, constituted simply a historical statement, and not a 
prophecy. No fulfilment, therefore, of that language was 
either necessary or possible. Why, then, should Jesus, 
many centuries afterward, have had to go down into 
Egypt, in order that, by being called out thence, he might 
fulfil this same scripture ? In attempting thus to palm 
off, upon the world, as a prophecy of Jesus, this purely 
historical statement concerning the Hebrews, does not 
Matthew prove himself to be wofully wanting in common 
honesty ? And do not those of our preachers, who know¬ 
ingly sustain him in this dishonest act, prove themselves 
to be equally wanting in the same great virtue? Thus 
falls still another of the prophetic props of that monstrous 
imposition, the Christian Religion. 

“ And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth : 
that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the proph¬ 
ets, He shall he called a Nazarene ” (Matt, ii, 23). Here, 
again, according to his invariable custom, Matthew grossly 
misquotes the language of this pretended prophecy. None 
of the prophets ever said of Jesus, or of any one else, 
“He shall be called a Nazarene.” And none of them ever 
conveyed in any other words any such meaning as is con¬ 
veyed by this forged quotation. The only language in the 
Old Testament that bears the slightest resemblance to this 
pretended quotation is found in Jud. xiii, 5, and reads as 


THE MESSIAH OR SAYIOR. 


817 


follows-: “For lo, tliou shalt conceive, and bear a son; 
and no razor shall come on his head ; for the child shall be 
a Nazarite unto God from the womb.” It is doubtless to 
this passage that our inveterate mutilator, Matthew, refers. 
This language, however, was spoken, not to Mary con¬ 
cerning her son Jesus, but, nearly twelve hundred years 
before Mary’s time, to the wife of Manoali, concerning her 
son, Samson. Besides this, the passage declares that he 
shall be a Nazarite , and not, as Matthew misquotes it, that 
“ he shall be called a Nazarene” 

Although the words Nazarene and Nazarite are some¬ 
what similar in form, their similarity is entirely acc¬ 
idental. It does not arise from any similarity of meaning. 
In meaning, the words are no more similar than are the 
words Londoner and Freemason. Indeed, the word Naza¬ 
rene does bear to the word Nazarite exactly the same rela¬ 
tion that the word Londoner bears to the word Freemason. 
As a Londoner is simply an inhabitant of London, so a 
Nazarene was simply an inhabitant of Nazareth. With a 
Nazarite, however, the case was quite otherwise. As does 
a Freemason now, so did a Nazarite then, take his name 
from his connection with a certain fraternity; or from his 
being bound by a solemn oath or vow* to perform certain 
duties which are not required to be performed by other 
men. 

As it is with a Londoner now, so it was with a Nazarene 
then; in regard to his mode of living, he was under no 
more restrictions -than were the inhabitants of any other 
Jewish city. A Nazarite, on the contrary, was bound to 
let his hair grow without cutting, and to abstain from the 
use of all luxuries, especially wine, vinegar, and grapes. 
Samson, Samuel, and , John the Baptist are all the Naza- 
rites that I find mentioned in the entire Bible. 

Being an inhabitant of Nazareth, Jesus was very prop¬ 
erly called a Nazarene. He was not so called “ from the 
wombf however, as he should have been had the so-called 
prophecy -in question bad any reference to him. So far 


818 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


from being, in his habits, a Nazarite, he was wont to in¬ 
dulge to such an extent in the luxuries of the table that, 
when the people beheld him, they were wont to exclaim: 
“ Behold, a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber.” By 
changing the word Nazarite into Nazarene, Matthew proves 
himself to have been either a fool or a knave ; or, at best, 
a very poor punster—a mere player upon words. In any 
view of the case, his writings are utterly worthless. 

“ And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat 
thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion : be¬ 
hold thy king cometli sitting on an ass’s colt” (John xii, 
14, 15). Dealing, as usual, in twos, Matthew gives quite a 
different account of this affair. He also gives quite a 
different quotation of the scripture, of which this affair is 
claimed to have been the fulfilment. Instead of having 
Jesus himself thus find one ass and mount it, Matthew, 
(xxi, 1-7,) lias him send two of his disciples to steal, or at 
least to take without leave, two asses; has the disciples 
place him upon these two asses, and has him ride them 
both, at the same time, into Jerusalem. 

What a figure he must have cut, riding thus into Je¬ 
rusalem, upon the backs of those two asses, and followed 
by a yelling mob of admiring vagrants! Just picture to 
yourselves the President of the United States riding thus 
into Washington, the Prince of Wales riding thus into. 
London, or the Emperor of Germany riding thus into 
Berlin! What could be more supremely ridiculous than 
is the very idea of such a jackassical performance, when 
that idea is associated with grand personages like these ? 
Wliat monstrous blasphemy it is, then, to represent the 
infinite power that rules the universe—the Almighty him¬ 
self, if you please—as performing that supremely ridicu¬ 
lous feat for the fulfilment of a pretended and silly proph¬ 
ecy! Do you really believe that the infinite power in 
question—that what you call God—ever dicl inspire any 
one to write such silly stuff about itself, or that, in the 
form and character of a clown, it ever did perform any 


THE MESSIAH OR SAVIOR. 


819 


such ridiculous feat of assmanship? Could not this 
prophecy, as you call it, have been equally well fulfilled 
by any other man who might have seen fit to make himself 
ridiculous by thus riding two asses at once into Jerusa¬ 
lem ? Infidel as I am, I would be sorry to tell such a story 
concerning your God. 

The scripture to which Matthew and John both refer, 
and which they seem to vie with each other in misquot¬ 
ing, is found in Zech. ix, 9, and reads as follows: “Re¬ 
joice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of 
Jerusalem: behold, thy king cometh unto thee : he is just, 
and having salvation: lowly, and riding upon an ass, and 
upon a colt the foal of an ass.” Who it was that came 
thus as a king to Jerusalem, “ riding upon an ass, and upon 
a colt the foal of an ass,” I do not pretend to know. I de 
pretend to know, however, that, although Zechariah wrote 
in the present tense, as if witnessing the scenes he was^ 
describing, he was giving the history of events which, ac¬ 
cording to the accepted chronology of the Bible, occurred, 
some sixty-seven years before. Of necessity, then, the 
language is historical and not prophetical. In order to be 
prophetical, language must, of necessity, refer to the 
future. No one can possibly prophesy or foretell a past 
or a present event. To describe, as does Zechariah, such 
an event, is simply to write history. Thus falls another of 
the main prophetic props of the most dangerous form of 
priestcraft. 

I have now fully and fairly examined five of the most 
important of the so-called prophecies of Jesus, and have 
found that not one of them refers to him at all. I have 
found that they all refer to matters which were either past 
or present, at the time they were written—matters, too, 
which were of no interest to anybody but the Jews. I 
have found also that these so-called prophecies are all of' 
such a nature that almost anyone, who might have seem 
fit to do so, could have procured their apparent fulfilment- 
I have shown that, whether by accident or design, Joseph: 


820 


THE BIBLE ANALYZED. 


did himself bring about the apparent fulfilment of three of 
these so-called prophecies. I have shown that by simply 
dreaming, or, rather, by simply pretending to dream, that 
Mary was with child of a ghost and not of a man, 
he fully satisfied the conditions of the pretended prophecy 
that a virgin should conceive, etc.; that by taking 
Jesus down into Egypt, and bringing him out thence, 
he fully satisfied the conditions of the pretended proph¬ 
ecy in which God is made to declare that he has called his 
;Son out of Egypt; and that, by taking Jesus to live in 
Nazareth, he fully satisfied the conditions of the pretended 
prophecy that some one should be called a Nazarene. 
Had any other person seen fit to dream, or to pretend to 
dream, that some other young woman was with child of a 
ghost; had he then taken this young woman’s illegitimate 
child, after its birth, down into Egypt and then brought it 
out again; and had he then taken it to live at Nazareth, 
would he not, with that child, have fulfilled all three of 
these pretended prophecies, just as well as Joseph fulfilled 
them with Mary’s child? In regard to the pretended 
prophecy that some one should ride into Jerusalem “upon 
an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass,” I have shown 
that it could have been equally well fulfilled by any other 
clown who might have seen fit to enter that city in so 
ridiculous a manner. And as to the pretended prophecy 
that somebody’s or something’s bones should not be 
broken, it clearly has been fulfilled by every man, every 
ox, every sheep, etc., that has been so fortunate as to pass 
through life with unbroken bones. 

For want of time, I cannot notice any more of the so- 
called prophecies of Jesus. All of the others, however, 
are just as easily disposed of as are those which I have 
noticed. Notone of them will bear the test of fair investi¬ 
gation. They all prove to be mere priestly impositions, 
as does also the entire doctrine that Jesus or any one else 
was ever the literal son of God. 

With these remarks I close this long course of lectures, 


THE MESSIAH OK SAVIOR. 


821 


to the preparation of which I have devoted several of the 
best years of my life. That a few unimportant errors may 
be found in these lectures, and harped upon by the ene¬ 
mies of free thought, is quite probable; but that, as a 
whole, my work is a great and good one, I fully believe 
will be the decision of the ablest thinkers of the world. 



i 


i 














t 

'*' i 

. . 

























































T 

\ 


















INDEX. 


823 


) 


I X D EX. 


Abraham, 25 ; visited by three angels, 
362, 426, 692; tempted by God, 
394-396 ; God’s promise to, 481; 
his bosom, 597 ; his intended sac¬ 
rifice, 698 

Abram, Hagar given to, 455 
Abijah, 439 
Absalom, 473, 665 
Achan, death of, 667 
Adam, death sentence on not carried 
out, 421; 686; 724 
Agag, taken by Saul. 449 
Ahab, 675 
Ahaz, 484, 488, 808 
Ahaziah, 439 

Alien, what may be sold to him, 465 
Amalek, smitten by . Saul and David, 
and twice destroyed, 429-430 
Anastasius, decree of concerning the 
gospels, 80 

Andrew, J. N., on the Sabbath, 650 
Angels, bodies given to, 86 
Annunciation, the, 108 
Archelaus, 790 
Arius, 92, 738 

Ark, the. its size, 267 ; how the room 
was occupied, 268 ; the necessary 
hay and other food, 269, ready 
for the flood, 270; the work 
which eight persons would be re¬ 
quired to do, 272; how the ani¬ 
mals reached the ark, 274-280; a 
knowledge of natural history nec¬ 
essary to Noah, 277; the time 
spent in building the ark, 281 
Ascension, the, 133 
Askelon, 441 
.Assmanship, 503, 818 
Athanasian Creed, 87 

Babel, tower of, 562 
Babylon, captivity of, 40 


Bastards, the law against, 452 
Begotten sons, 737 
Benjamin, as a procreator, 301 
Bethlehem, star of, 114-117 ; 787 
Bible, the age of, 17 ; the Douay, 203 
Billiah, 463 

Blemishes, the disabilities entailed by, 
449 

Boaz, and Ruth, 16 
Bondmen, 664 
Book of the law, 31-65 
Books, of the Old Testament, dates of 
their origin, 50; from heaven, 
their character, 53; of the New 
Testament, 69 

Boulanger, quotation from, 81 
Bruno, 143, 218 

Caiaphus, the high priest, 62 
Calmet, on the epistle of John, 80 
Canticles, book of, 19 
Caloric, substituted for light by Dr. 

Clarke, 204 
Capernaum, 595 
Catholic Church, the, 652 
Celsus, 98 
Chaos, 185 

Chaldeans, the, contest of the Jews 
with, 51 
Chemosh, 709 

Christ a Jew, 78: his genealogy as 
given by Matthew, 104; his cru¬ 
cifixion, 123; temptation of, 127; 
in the sepulcher, 128-132; the 
resurrection and ascension, 132- 
134; not the first sacrifice, 161. 
(See Jesus and Messiah or Savior.) 
Chrishna, of India, 792 
Christian religion, upon what it must 
stand or fall, 66, 111; first con¬ 
verts, 77 

Christians, first so called, 77 



t 


INDEX 


824 

Chronicles, 16, 25 
Church councils, 83-86 
Churches or god-houses, 719 
Circumcision. 628 

Clarke, Dr., on the book of Job, 17; 
on the four gospels, 75; on the 
errors and corruptions of the N. 
T., 82; on the death of Judas, 
126; on the difficulties of the 
creation story, 204; on the del¬ 
uge, 262; on the creation of Je¬ 
sus, 747 

Colenso, Bishop, on the age of Judah, 
299 

Communism of Jesus, 726 
Constantine, 85, 89-93 ; 738 
Contradictions and errors of the Bible, 
391-475 

Council of Laodicea, 86 ; of Nice, 91- 
96 

Covenant, ark of the, 568 
Creation, the, 252; an attempt to dis¬ 
prove the story of, an Important 
and stupendous question, what it 
involves, the source of all good 
and evil, priests, churches, hell, 
and devils useless, 135; the Chris¬ 
tian hypothesis and the wonder¬ 
ful possibilities under it, 136-139; 
its supporters and deniers, 140; 
the conflict between religion and 
science, 142; the church crying 
“Peace;” space, matter, and dur¬ 
ation, the creator before creation, 
146 ; God’s dwelling-place, 147 ; 
the Great First Cause an infinite 
vacuum, 148; God’s presence and 
absence the same, what caused 
God? 150; an infinite chain of 
causes necessary, 151; the mean¬ 
ing of an eternal period, 152; 
the creator of necessity a An te 
being, 153; an infinite number of 
creators necessary, all gods as¬ 
sumptions, 154; the origin of the 
god idea, 155; all gods but one 
wicked inventions, the accident of 
birth, 156; gods a reflection of 
the men who invented and wor¬ 
ship them, 157: Jehovah as the 
God of the African, 158; the God 
problem algebraically stated, 162 ; 
the origin of the priesthood, 164; 
how gods, Jehovah especially, 
have attained eminence, 165; the 
personality of God, 167; how 
the Bible represents God, 167; if 


God is not a person, what is he?’ 
168: how did God exist before 
the creation? 170; the begetting 
of Jesus by himself, 172, do the 
priests believe what they teach ? 
173 ; God as a spirit, also as the 
sun, 174; design, 176; a chal¬ 
lenge, 178; the Bible narrative of 
creation, 179; the creative point, 
the impossibility of reaching it, 
183; eternity and the creative 
point, 184; the creation, what it 
consisted in, 184; the universe a 
necessary part of the creator, 
185; the original condition of mat¬ 
ter according to the theologians, 
185-187 ; a change in the creator’s 
condition necessary to creation, 
186; what first set causes to act¬ 
ing? how the creator proceeded 
to work; the mechanical method 
of creation, 187; what the me¬ 
chanical requires, the necessity of 
a material body for the creator,, 
the creator a huge monster in the 
shape of a man, 188; friction and 
resistance requisite, the develop¬ 
ment theory, and the difference 
between infidel scientists and the- 
theologians, 189; an analysis of 
matter, 190; the mechanical meth¬ 
od necessary to creation in six 
literal days, and how hard-faced 
theologians attempt to evade the 
difficulty; were not the Great 
Giascutis and the Great Jumping 
Jingo implied in the word God? 

. 191; the six days of creation used 
literally, and so understood by the- 
Hebrews, 192; “geological epochs” 
a reductio ad absurdum , 193; an. 
injury to the cause of the theolo¬ 
gians, 198; the peculiarities of 
figurative language, 194; water, 
197 ; let there be light, 199: the 
senses of the creator, 201: what 
constitutes light ? 202; the earth’s 
position before the creation of 
the sun, 203 ; caloric, 204 : firm- 
amentum, rakia, what the words 
signify, 205, 219. 233; the Ptole¬ 
maic or geocentric system of as¬ 
tronomy, 206; Josephus on the 
firmament or crystalline, 206; the 
creation of man, 206-213; man 
created in the image of the three 
persons of the trinity or Elohim 


INDEX. 825 


and the three persons therefore 
alike, 207; how trinitarians en¬ 
deavor to avoid the pagan doc¬ 
trine of polytheism, 208; dust 
of the ground and the soul, 209; 
has man a soul? 210; man not de¬ 
signed to live forever, 210 ; no no¬ 
tion of immortality among the 
Jews, 211; the earth the princi¬ 
pal body of the universe accord¬ 
ing to the Bible, 213; where the 
waters of the deluge came from, 
215; Job’s theory of creation, 
216; the earth flat and stationary 
according to the belief of Bible 
writers, 217; God sitting upon 
. the heavens, and he watereth the 
hills, 226; day independent of the 
sun, 226; false doctrines of the 
Bible in regard to form, position, 
etc., of the earth established, and 
questions thereby raised, 228; 
how the church always understood 
the Bible, and what followed, 228- 
231; falling stars, 237 ; the Bible 
and science, 239-241; creation of 
the devil, 241; did God know 
what kind of a character he was 
making ? 244-247 ; the devil not 
responsible for evil, 249; hell, 
where most of the orthodox peo¬ 
ple will land, 250 ; error displaced 
by truth, 251. 

Cronicon of Muis, 80 

Crucifixion, the, and accompanying 
phenomena, 123, 797, 801 


Daille, on the “ Use of the Fathers,” 
100 

Damnation, what it depends on, 454; 

who are booked for it, 683 
Dan, 303 ; city of, 25; tribe of and its 
wonderfully prolific character, 314 
Danites, 25 
Darius, 14 
Darkness, 201 

Daughters, as property, 467 
David, King, prepares $3,000,000,000 
in gold, 388 ; sons of, delivered into 
the hands of the Gibeonites, 407 ; 
moved by the Lord to number Is¬ 
rael, 428, 667 ; buys a threshing- 
floor, 433 ; his pas seul before the 
ark, 451; he receives a present of 
a houseful of wives, 472 ; moved 
by Satan, 524; takes his mothers- 


in-law to his bosom, 668; sacrifice 
of his stepsons, 714 
Death, on a pale horse, 599 
Deborah, her tribute to Jael, 441 
Deluge, the, when it occurred, and 
why it was necessary, 252; how 
long it lasted, 253; depth of the 
water, 254; where the waters 
came from, 255; windows of 
heaven, 259; what became of the 
waters after the deluge, 264;: 
where the ark rested, 266; a gen¬ 
eral deluge necessary, 266; the 
ark, 267 ; the moral aspect of the 
deluge, 282 ; the plan of salvation,. 
284-293 ; a description of heaven. 
288; the souls of the people de- 
stro 3 r ed and what became of them,. 

289 ; a disagreeable subject to the 
champions of the Bible, and what 
some of them assume about it, 

290 ; God’s fore-knowledge of sins 
to be committed, 290-292 

Demi-gods, 158, 723 
Design, the argument of, 176; in the 
matter of God’s sex, 763 
Devil, creation of the, 241; did God 
know what kind of character he 
was making? 244-247; not respon¬ 
sible for evil, 249 ; or Satan, 515- 
556; orign of the idea, 515 ; pagan 
devils, 516; his original estate, 
517 ; an abode prepared for him, 

5.8; quotation from “ The Devil’s 
Defense,” 519, 520, 522, 523, 542, 
550-556; moves David to number 
Israel, 524; before the Lord, 525 ; 
at the right hand of Joshua, the 
high priest, 527 ; Zechariah’s Sa¬ 
tan, 528; Jesus tempted, 529; set- 
teth Jesus on a pinnacle, 533 ; on 
a high mountain, 534; the man 
possessed with a devil, 540; a sim¬ 
ilar case, 541; when, where, and 
how were devils made ? their sex, 
etc., 546; the fifth form of the 
devil, 548. 

Devils, the casting out of, 124, 799; 

some queries concerning, 125 
“ Devil’s Defense,” quotation from, 
404, 519, 520, 523, 550-556 
Dimensions of the holy Jerusalem, 567 
Douay Bible, the, concerning light, 
203; on the plurality of the deity,. 
207 

Dreams, 111; 759 
Duration, 183 


826 INDEX. 


Earth, the, represented by the Bible 
as stationary, flat, and the princi¬ 
pal body of the universe, 217, 220, 
221 

Ecclesiastes, book of, 19 
Eden, Garden of, origin of the stoiy of, 
50 

Edom, 25 

Egyptians, the, did they marry Hebrew 
wives? 320; spoiling of, 418 
Eleazar, 4G8 

Elohim, a corporation of gods, 200, 427 
Emmanuel, alleged prophecy of, 483 
Emmaus, 802 
Ephesus, Synod of, 93 
Epistle of James, the, an “epistle of 
straw,” 80 
Er, 295 

Errors of the Bible, 391-475: the mis¬ 
take of creation, 392 ; the tree of 
knowledge, 393; a gross slander 
upon God, 393 ; God beheld by 
Moses and Aaron, Nadab and 
Abihu, seventy of the elders, and 
Isaiah, and that fact denied by 
John, 394; Adam and Moses hear 
God’s voice, denied by John, 394; 
Abraham tempted of God to sac¬ 
rifice Isaac, 394-396; Pharaoh’s 
heart hardened, 396; the question 
of prophets, 397 ; God threatens 
the people, gives them contradic¬ 
tory commands, and tempts them, 
398 ; burnt offerings and sacrifices 
condemned, 399: a just and right 
God doeth evil, 400 ; God slow to 
anger, yet pours out his fury and 
is a consuming fire, 400-401; 
“ Slay every man his brother,” 
401 ; slaughter of the Midianites, 
403 ; “ The Devil’s Defense,” quo¬ 
tation from, 404; Jephthah’s 
daughter, 407 ; David’s sons 
hanged, 407 ; fornication con¬ 
demned by precept, 409 ; indorsed 
by example, 411-416; Hosea’s 
liaisons , 411-414; the ceremony 
of the loosened shoe, 414; the 
thirty-two thousand, 417 ; the 
spoiling of the Egyptians, 418; 
Adam condemned to die, but con¬ 
tinuing to live, 421 ; contradic¬ 
tions of the Bible, 426-47 5 ; Abra¬ 
ham and the three angels, 427 ; 
Amalek smitten by Saul and Da¬ 
vid, 429; contradictions about a 
threshing-floor and a number of 


horsemen, 433 ; killing forbidden 
and commanded by God, 436-438 ; 
what Jesus came for, 438 ; Abi¬ 
gail’s reign, Joseph’s two fathers, 
Ahaziah, 439 ; witches not suffered 
to live, 444 ; the test to which a 
jealous husband may cause his 
wife to submit, 444; who may 
not enter into the congrega¬ 
tion of the Lord, 449; the blind 
and lame debarred the house by 
David, 451; David’s dance before 
his handmaids, 451; Michal’s 
punishment for reproving hitn, 
452 ; the penalty for not believing 
that Christ came in the flesh, 453- 
454; Sarai’s kindness to Abram, 
455; Leah and Rachel follow 
Sarai’s example, 456, 461; Lot 
and his daughters, 458-460 ; Reu¬ 
ben and his mandrakes, 461; Jo¬ 
seph’s temptation, 462; Reuben 
relieves Jacob, 463 ; human sla¬ 
very advocated, 464; what may 
be sold to an alien, 465 ; women 
held as property, 466 ; daughters 
considered as live stock, 467 ; 
Midianitish women given to the 
sold ers, 468 ; a tribute unto the 
Lord, 469; David receives a val¬ 
uable gift, 47 2 ; the Lord threat¬ 
ens Dai id, 473; Absalom’s out¬ 
rageous act, 473; prayer, 475; 
forgiveness of sin, 475 
Esdras, 44 ; book of, how written, 44 
Essenes, 794 
Esther, book of, 17 
Eunuchs, 595 

Exodus, the, 294-359; Judah and his 
family; Joseph sold into Egypt; 
Er, Onan, and Shelah, 295 ; Tamar 
and Onan, Pharez and Zarah, 
Hezron and Hamul, 296-297; 
Benjamin as a procreator and the 
tender age at which he became a 
parent, 301-303; how the cham¬ 
pions of the Bible seek to escape 
the difficulties involved, 303 ; a 
wonderful and unaccountable dif¬ 
ference, 304; death of Joseph, 
304 ; destruction of the male in¬ 
fants of the Hebrews, 306; the 
army of 600,000, 307; the Bible 
champions’ subterfuge, 308 ; a 
disproportion in the matter of sex, 
308; the number of Hebrews in 
Egypt at the time the new-born 


INDEX. 


infants were killed, 309; fruitful¬ 
ness of the Hebrews, and the ex¬ 
tended duties of the mid wives 
Shiprah and Shuah, 310-311; the 
four generations of those whose 
lives were spent in Egypt, 312; 
the ratio of increase, 314; tirst- 
borns, 315; small families the 
rule among the Hebrews, 316; the 
average of children to each He¬ 
brew mother, 317; the sons of 
Kohath, and how the 3 r multiplied, 
318; polygamy as an explanation, 
319; the inadequacy of that the¬ 
ory, 320; the number of husbands 
and fathers, 321; God's course 
with Pharaoh, and the reason as¬ 
signed for it, 322: punishments 
indicted upon the Egyptians, 323 ; 
the area of country required by 
the Hebrews, 324; the killing of 
the Egyptians’ cattle, 326; the 
immense labor of the destroying 
angel, 328-330; what was per¬ 
formed after 1 o’clock one night, 
332 ; the camp astir, 333; vast 
complications, 334; the order of 
march, 335 ; a parallel case, 335- 
336; the march to the Red Sea, 
337; the question of food for man 
and beast, 338, 342; birth and 
death rate, 338-340; the difficul¬ 
ties and-the necessities of a forced 
march, 341, 348; crossing the Red 
Sea, 348-350; war with the Amal- 
ekites, 350 : the tabernacle, 350; 
three hundred thousand tents re¬ 
quired. 351; Moses preaches to 
the entire Hebrew nation, 351, 
352; the camp occupied by the 
Hebrews in the desert, 353-356; 
what wc learn about God in the 
exodus story, 358 

Ezra, doubtful authorship of the book 
of, 13, 44 

Ezra, Eben, 311 


Fathers, of the church, what they 
taught, 76 
Fetichism, 445 

Figurative language applied to the 
story of creation, 193, 216, 232 
Firmament, the, 181, 205 ; Dr. Smith 
on, 219, 232-235 

First-borns, 315 ; killing of, 306, 323, 
332 


827 

Fornication, condemned, 409; com¬ 
manded, 411 

Foundations of the sky, 225 
Furnace, the fierj", 389 

Gabriel, 762, 788 
Gad, the seer, book of, 44 
Gadarenes. 544 
Galilee, 539, 803 
Galileo, 143, 218 

Garden of Eden, the story of borrowed 
from Zoroaster, 50 
Gath, King of, 430 
Gehenna, 585, 604 
Gehinnom, 585, 601, 604 
Genesis, book of, when written, 25, 26 
Geological epoch §>, 191-194; their sub¬ 
stitution for days an injury to the 
cause of the theologians, 198 
Gergesenes, 544 

Ghost, the Holy, 110, 111, 114, 774- 
784 

Gibbon, 650 

Gibeonites, David’s sons delivered into 
the hands of, 407 
Glory, the, of God, 693 
God, personality of, 167; as repre¬ 
sented by the Bible, 168; false¬ 
hoods charged to, 420-423 ; lying 
prophets sent out bj r , 423 ; killing 
forbidden and commanded by, 
436-438; David given a houseful 
of wives by, 472; how he con¬ 
vinced his enemies that lie was 
the Lord, 689; under the control 
of Moses, 690 ; sons of, 738; Ma¬ 
terialization of, 743 ; sex of, 745- 
764; God of the Bible, 661-716; 
slavery approved by, 662; laws 
as to man and maid servants, 662- 
664; the creator of evil, 664 ; the 
debaucher of women, 665; the 
slaughterer of 70,000 innocent 
people, 667 ; the giving of David’s 
mothers - in -law to himself as 
wives, 668; polygamy and concu¬ 
binage, 669; his commands to 
Hosea, 669; the enemy of knowl¬ 
edge, 672: the empty threat made 
to Hezekiah, 673; he will violate 
his sworn promise, 673; on his 
throne, 674; he puts a lying spirit 
in the mouths of the prophets, 
675; facts learned in regard to 
the attributes of God, 676 ; he de¬ 
ceives the people and Jerusalem, 
and Jeremiah calls him to account, 


828 


INDEX. 


677 ; he rewards lying, 678; a 
certain portion of the race predes¬ 
tinated to eternal damnation, 680 ; 
Paul affirms it, 681; how the 
champions of the Bible justify it, 
682; who are booked for eternal 
damnation? 683; the pollution of 
God’s people, 685 ; capable of be¬ 
ing wearied, 686; not omniscient, 
687 ; his fury, 688, 690; his fear 
of disgrace, 689; his wrestling 
match with Jacob, 691; his in¬ 
ability to contend with chariots of 
iron, 692; exhibits his “glory,” 
693; he commands the Egyptian 
women to “ borrow,” 694; slay 
every man his brother, 696; 
Joshua commandedtoexterminate 
all that was in the city, 699; de¬ 
struction of the Midianites, and 
the treatment of their women, 
700; butchery, 701-703; a tutelary 
divinity of the Jews, 704-709; 
other gods, 707 
God-baiting, 719 
God-liouses, 719 
God-mountains, 561 
Gods in general, 156; how carried to 
eminence, 165; communication 
with. 717; cohabitation of with 
virgins, 721 

Gospels, the, examined, 69 ; Dr. Clarke 
on, 75 ; decree of Anastasius con¬ 
cerning, 80 ; Eclectic Review on, 
101 

Great Giascutis, implied, 191 
Great Jumping Jingo likewise shad¬ 
owed forth, 191 

Hades, 585 
Hagar, 455 
Hamul, 297 

Heaven, described, 288 ; of the Bible, 
557-607 ; origin of the word heav¬ 
en, 557: creation of the heaven, 
558; as a proper noun, 559; Mt. 
Sinai, 561; the tower of Babel, 
562; Sodom and Gomorrah, 563; 
heaven direct^ over the earth, 
564; the door opened and a won¬ 
derful city disclosed,. 566, dimen¬ 
sions of the New Jerusalem, 567; 
ark of the covenant, 568; pearls 
and gold, 569 ; the heavens burn 
and tremble, and its pillars are as¬ 
tonished, 570; heaven to pass 
away and the stars fall, 571; the 


real character of the Christian re¬ 
ligion, 581; the location of heav¬ 
en, 584; ascensions into, 805; 
locality of, 806. 

Hebrews, the, in what form they went 
down into Egypt, 300 ; how they 
filled the land, 305; destruction of 
their male infants, 306; their 
army of 600,000; their population 
at the time the male infants 
were killed, 309: the area of land 
occupied, 310; their fruitfulness, 
310; the four generations of those 
whose lives were spent in Egypt, 
312; their ratio of increase, 314; 
small families the rule, 316; their 
flight from Egypt, 333-359; to 
the Red Sea, 337, 340; quails, 
341; crossing the Red Sea, 348- 
350; their battle with the Ama- 
lekites, 350; building the taber¬ 
nacle, 350; their camp, 353-356; 
borrowing of the Egyptians, 694. 

Helios, 174 

Hell of the Bible, 557-607; origin of 
the word, 585 ; first mentioned in 
the Bible, 586; the sorrows of, 
587 ; what David and Samuel un¬ 
derstood by hell, 587 ; mistrans¬ 
lations, 588; the grave called 
hell, 590; the location of hell, 
592; who are liable to hell? 593; 
bodies of men cast entire into 
hell, 594; eunuchs, 595; Caper¬ 
naum, 596; hell merely literal or 
figurative lowness, 597; the rich 
man in, 597; th« soul of Christ in, 
598; David on, 599; the fire of 
compared to the fire of the human 
tongue, 599; death on a pale 
horse, 599; as a soldier, 599; the 
dead delivered up, 600; John’s 
location of the abodes of devils 
and the damned, 605; damnation 
to, 683 

Herod, 118; infants slaughtered by, 
121, 790 

Hezekiah, 65 ; God’s empty threat to, 
673 

Hilkiah, the priest, 31; finding of the 
book of the law by, 31-65 

Hinnom, 594, 601 

Hirah, 299 

Holy Ghost, the, 110, 111, 531, 174; 
774-784 

Holy Jerusalem, the, 567 

Holy Trinity, the, 175 


INDEX. 


Horeb, 570 

Hosea, liaisons of, 411-414; his al¬ 
leged prophecy, 496, 670 
House of the Lord, size of, 36 

Immaculate conception, the, Matthew 
on, 757 ; Luke on. 762 
Immortality, not a Jewish belief, 210 
Incarnation, the, 757 
Irenaeus, reasoning of, 75, 100 
Isaac, the intended sacrifice of, 698 
Isaiah, alleged prophecies of as to the 
coming of Christ, 483-495; 808- 
812; his failure as a prophet, 811 
Israel, numbered by David at the com¬ 
mand of God, 432; at the in¬ 
stance of Satan, 524 

Jacob, 295; wrestling bout of, 428, 
456, 691 
Jael, 440 
Jaddua, 14 
Jasher, book of, 44 
Jealousy, 444 
Jeberechiah, 809 
Jebusites, the, 35 
Jehovah, the sun-god, 174, 644 
Jephthah, his sacrifice, 407, 709, 711- 
714 

Jeremiah, God called to account by, 
677 

Jericho, 678 

Jerusalem, taken by the children of 
Israel, 15; destruction of, 507; 
deceived by the Lord, 677 
Jesus, godsliip of, 87 ; birth of, 112, 
774; his ride into Jerusalem, 127 ; 
his temptation, 127 ; his resurrec¬ 
tion, 129; his assmanship, 503, 
504; his fast, 531; on the pin¬ 
nacle, 533; on a high mountain, 
535; at Cana of Galilee, 540; 
devils cast out by, 541: his errone¬ 
ous ideas, 575; rejected by many 
Jews, 646 ^See the Messiah or 
Savior). 

Jews, how Christianity is looked upon 
by, 69 
Joab, 451 

Job, book of, 17; God’s wager with, 
18, 665 
Jonah, 389 

Joseph, his alleged flight into Egypt, 
118, 120, 789; his two fathers, 
439; as a fulfiller of prophecy, 
498-502; his dream, 759 
Joseph, sold into Egypt, 295, 29£; his 


829 

marriage, 295; his death, 304; his 
temptation, 462 
Joshua, book of examined, 28-30; the 
sun and moon stopped by, 29, 383; 
Midianites slaughtered by, 406 
Josiah, the king, 38 
Jove, sons of, 794 

Judah the patriarch and his family, 
295 ; his liaison with Tamar, 296; 
with Shuah, 299 

Judas, death of, 126, 801; his money, 
how disposed of, 127, 801 
Justin Martyr, 794 

KA.NSA, 792 

Killing of the Egyptians’ cattle, 323 
Kings, the anonymous nature of the 
book of, 16 

Knowledge, tree of, 393, 672 
Kohathites, marvelous multiplication 
of, 318-319 

Laish, 25 

Language, literal and figurative, 216 
Laodicea, council of, 651 
Lazarus, in Abraham’s bosom, 594 
Leah, 456, 461 
Levites, 308 
Life-germs,'747 

Light, creation of, 199; and darkness, 
how designated, 193 
Lost books, 44 

Lot, wife of turned to salt, 366; and 
his daughters, 458 

Maccabees, the, 47 
Maher-shalal-hash-baz, 809 
Man, his creation, 206 
Manicheans, the, and the New Testa¬ 
ment, 81 
Maroth, 665 
Mary Magdalene, 128 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, annuncia¬ 
tion to, 108 ; proposed punishment 
of, 109; found with child of the 
Holy Ghost, 110; repudiated by 
her son, 735, 774, 802 
Matter, the question of its creation, 
184; original condition of accord¬ 
ing to the theologians, 185; an 
anal 3 *sis of, 190 

Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
method of writing of, 70; char¬ 
acter for veracity of, 71; pagan 
mutilators of Matthew, 79; a 
gross misquoter of scripture, 815 ; 
an indifferent punster, 818 


830 


INDEX. 


Mediators, 87, 721, 739 

Menander, 794 

Messiah, Jesus as the, 77 ; or Savior 
of the Bible, 717-821; the beget¬ 
ting ofdemi-gods, 721; prophecies 
of, 722; the identity of Jesus 
with Jehovah, 724; improvident 
teachings of Jesus, 725 ; his com¬ 
munistic principles, 726, 742; his 
redeemership, 727, 729; redemp¬ 
tion, 731; the sense in which 
Jesus was the son of God, 731; 
no earthly father or mother ac¬ 
knowledged by Jesus, 734; the 
denial of his mother, 735; the 
Son of Man, 736 ; the only begot¬ 
ten, 737 ; the Council of Nice, 738; 
Christ simply a man and a wine- 
bibber, 741; the “creation” of 
Jesus, 747; a god, a man, or a 
cross between, 750; life-germs, 
750; the evidence of Christ’s di¬ 
vine paternity, 757; vicarious 
atonement, 7 64; prophecies of the 
Messiah’s coming considered, 773; 
the Holy Ghost, 774-784; the 
wise men, 7 §5 ; star of Bethlehem, 
787; Gabriel, 788; the dream, 
789; Herod, 790; Kansa and 
Chrishna, 792: Christ’s disputa¬ 
tion in the temple, 793 ; the Ther- 
apeuts and Essenes, Justin Mar¬ 
tyr and. Menander, 794; St. Au¬ 
gustine on the antiquity of Chris¬ 
tianity, 895 ; miracles which be¬ 
lievers shall do, 796; the cruci¬ 
fixion, 797; the resurrection of 
the saints, 798; devils cast out, 
799; the man from the tombs, 
799; contradictor}'- stories as to 
the drowning of the swine, 799; 
a legion of devils, 800 ; the heal¬ 
ing of the blind, 801; to whom did 
Jesus first appear after the resur¬ 
rection? 802; the appearance of 
Jesus to the multitude, 804; the 
ascension of gods into heaven, 
805; the direction taken, 805; 
prophecies alleged to shadow forth 
the coming of Christ, 808-820 

Michal, punishment of for rebuking 
David’s unseemly conduct. 452 

Midianites, the slaughter of, 403. 699- 
703 

Miracles, a belief in the only differ¬ 
ence between Infidels and Chris¬ 
tians, 360; Abraham and the 


three angels, 362; Lot’s wife, 
366; rods turned into serpents by 
Moses, 367-370; the waters of 
Egypt changed to blood, 370-371; 
the miracle of the frogs, 371; the 
raising of the dead by Jesus, 373; 
the miracle of the lice, 375; the 
cattle of Egypt miraculously de¬ 
stroyed, 375; darkness, 378; di¬ 
viding the waters of the Red Sea, 
380; water drawn from a rock, 
381; the quail and manna miracles, 
382-383; the sun and moon stand 
still, 383-387 ; the gold and silver 
which David prepared,388; Sham- 
gar slays 600 men with an ox-goad, 
and Samson works still greater 
wonders, 388; the fiery furnace, 
Jonah in the whale’s belly, and 
Elijah in a chariot of fire, 389 

Miraculous conception, the, 108-110 

Molech, 601 

Moses, 14. 21; the argument consid¬ 
ered by wh ch theologians attempt 
' to fix the authorship of the Penta¬ 
teuch upon him, 21-28; orations 
of, 27; preaching to the entire 
Hebrew nation, 351, 352; rods 
turned into serpents by, 367-370; 
waters of Egypt turned into blood 
by, 370, 371; three days of dark¬ 
ness caused by, 378; the waters 
of the Red Sea divided by, 380; 
water procured from a rock by, 
381; God’s “glory” shown to, 
393; God under the control of,690; 
instructed to lie to the Egyptians, 
695 

Mothers-in-law, how they may be dis¬ 
posed of, 658 

Motion, 149 

Mount Sinai, 717 

Mountains, inhabitants of whom God 
could not drive out, 692 

Nathan, the prophet, book of, 44 

Nazarene, he shall be called a, 498, 
816 

Nazarite, difference from Nazarene, 
501, 816 

Nehemiah, doubtful authorship of the 
book of, 13 

New Testament, the foundation of the 
Christian religion, a few things 
taught by the Bible which we 
mu&t accept, 67 ; what it is neces¬ 
sary to admit and prove in order 


INDEX. 


to sustain Christianity, 68 ; saints, 
and how they were made, 70; 
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 
and their gospels, 7 0-7 5; the 
teachings and practices of the 
early fathers, 7 6; the first follow¬ 
ers of Jesus not called Christians, 
77; the Jews monotheists, 78; 
pagan mutilators, 79; Calmet, 
Cronicon of Muis, Monthly Re¬ 
pository Boulanger, M. Simon, 
and Dr. Clarke, on the corruptions 
of the New Testament, 80-82; 
other gospels, 83; first collection 
of N. T. books, 84 ; the council of 
Nice; important matters settled 
by a mere vote, 86, 87 ; Emperor 
Constantine, 89; his murders, 90; 
how Jesus became the Son of 
God, 91; St. Gregory Nazianzen 
on councils of bishops, 92 ; Tindal 
on the first Council of Nice, 93; 
the manufacture of miracles, 95 ; 
Tillemont on Eusebius, 96; St. 
Augustine’s travels and what he 
saw, 98; St. Hermas and his habit 
of pious lying, 99 ; Daille’s testi¬ 
mony concerning the fathers, 99- 
100; Dr. Whitby’s complaint of 
Irenseus and Father Papias, 100 ; 
the Eclectic Review on the gos¬ 
pels, 101; St. Jerome not disposed 
to find fault, 101; Mosheim on 
Justin Martyr, 102; the first 
chapter of Mat hew examined, 
104; the genealogy of Christ, 
105, 108; the annunciation, 108; 
the punishment proposed for Mary, 
109; found with Child of the Holy 
Ghost, 110; the wise men, 112— 
114; the star of Bethlehem, 114- 
117; the dreams of Joseph, 117, 
118; his flight into Egypt, 118; 
Luke’s version oc the affair. 119; 
the massacre of the innocents, 
121; the crucifixion, 123; the two 
men possessed of devils according 
to Matthew, 124; Luke’s version, 
125; contradictory accounts of the 
healing of two blind men. Judas 
and his monety the crucifixion of 
the thieves, the Sermon on the 
Mount, the two asses, Jesus and 
the devil, the visitors to the sepul¬ 
cher of Christ, etc., etc., 126-129 ; 
the resurrection and ascensmn of 
Christ, 132-134 


831 

Nineveh, destruction of prophesied, 
673 

Noah, 253; altar built by, 687; 

Old Testament, the, what it contains, 
and what is claimed for it, 10; the 
most important books anonj'mous 
and without date, 13 ; Ezra, Nehe- 
miah, Pentateuch, Joshua, Judges, 
Ruth, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, 
Esther, Job, Psalms, Proverbs, 
Ecclesiastes, and Canticles briefly 
examined, 4-20; God’s wager with 
Job, 18 ; was Moses the author of 
the Pentateuch ? 20; his claim to 
such authorship examined, 21-28; 
Joshua not the author of the 
book bearing his name, 28-30; 
Hilkiah finds the book of the law, 
Shaphan reads it to the king, and 
the king rends his clothes, 31; 
what the book of the law con¬ 
tained, 31; the improbability of 
the book ever having been lost, 
32; the king “inquires of the 
Lord,” 33; the objections to the 
theory that the book found by 
Hilkiah was the word of God, 
etc., 34-62; what the book was 
written on, 63 ; how long had the 
book been lost, and other queries, 
64, 65 

Olivet, Mount, 803 
Onan. 295-296 

Origen, 86; anti-Sabbatarian views of, 
" 646 

Pagans, doctrines and usages adopted 
by Christians, 645-649 
Pantheism, 186 
Pappius, 95 

Paul, the apostle, craftiness of, 99 ; 
views of on predestination, 681, 
684 

Pentateuch, the, 20-28 
Persecutions, by the church, 576-577 
Peter, errors of, 511-513 
Pharaoh, 295; the hardening of the 
heart of, 322, 396; punisnmentof 
by God, 323 
Philip, 539 

Physical forces, incessant activity of, 
194 

Plan of salvation, 284-293 
Plato, 794 
Polygamy, 320 
Potiphar, wife of, 462 


832 


INDEX. 


Prayer, 474 
Predestination, 679 
Priests, 164 
Prometheus, 88, 740 
Property, slaves as, 464; women as, 
466, 467 ; daughters as, 467 
Prophecies of the Bible, 476-514; the 
first prophecy, 479; God’s proph¬ 
ecy to Eve, 480; to Abraham, 
481; Isaiah on Emmanuel, 483; 
John’s contribution, 492; Hosea 
“quoted” by Matthew, 496: 
“ He shall be called a Nazarene,” 
498; Nazarite, 501: the prophecy 
of the two asses, 503; the de¬ 
struction of Jerusalem, 507; errors 
of Peter, 511-513; destruction of 
the earth, 511-514 
Prophet, original signification, 47 6 
Prophets, 397 ; lying, 423 
Proverbs, book of, 19 
Prynne, on the Sabbath, 651 
Psalms, book of, 19 

Rachel, 456, 461 
Rahab, 678 
Rakia, 223 
Ramoth-gilead, 674 
Redemption, 731 
Resurrection, the, 129-133, 803 
Reuben, 461, 463 

Sabbaths an iniquity, 62 
Sabbath of the Bible, 608-660; bless¬ 
ing of, 609; the seventh day, 610; 
God’s blessings in general, 611; 
God’s rest and refreshment, 615; 
Sabbaths instituted by wicked and 
designing men, 617 ; the penalty 
of working on the Sabbath, 618; 
injustice of Sabbath-laws, 619- 
620, 640, 654; why the seventh 
■day was chosen, 623 ; the Sabbath 
binding on the Jews only, 626- 
627, 632: circumcision, 628; the 
-seventh day designed to be forever 
a sign between Jehovah and the 
Jews, 629; the nature of the 
covenant, 630; the Jewish nation 
as the bride of God, 631; the sub¬ 
stitution of another day for the 
Sabbath, 637 ; Tertullian on the 
Sabbath, 642 ; the week of seven 
days in general use among the 
pagans, 643; origin of the week, 
644; Jehovah a sun-god, 644; 
Christianity brought to resemble 


paganism, and the reason there¬ 
for, 649; J. N. Andrew on the 
Sabbath, 650; Prynne, 651; the 
Catholic church, 652 
Sabbath-breaking, penalty of, 619, 620 
Sacrifices an iniquity, 61, 160, 399, 
469; caused by God, 685; human, 
710; of Saul’s grandsons, 714; of 
demi-gods, 723 
Saint Augustine, 97, 794 
Saint Chrysostom, 42 
Saint Hermas, 99 
Saint Hilary, 94 
Saint Jerome, 100 
Saints, resurrection of, 797 
Saintship, 72 

Salvation, plan of, 284-293 
Samson, 25 ; miracles of, 388; the go¬ 
ing down to Ashkelon of, 441 
Samuel, 15, 679 

Sanhedrim, the, and the scriptures, 48; 

character of for veracity, 49 
Sarai, 455 

Satan, the word first used, 524; Israel 
caused to be numbered by, 524 
Saul, Amalek smitten by, 429, 679; 

grandsons of sacrificed, 714 
Savior, the, 717-821 (see Jesus and 
Messiah or Savior) 

Scaliger, 80 

Science and Religion, 141-143 
Scriptures, restored by Ezra, 45 
Sepulcher of Jesus, 128 
Sermon on the Mount, 127 
Sex of God, 7 63 
Shamgar, the exploit of, 388 
Shaphan, the scribe, 31; absurd stories 
connected with, 32-65 
Shelali, 295; premature growth of, 297 
Sheol. 585 
Shuah, 299 
Simeon, 791 
Sin, forgiveness of, 475 
Sisera, death of, 440 
Sisters-in-law, the business of going in 
unto, 414-416 

Sky, the, a solid structure, 222 
Slavery, advocated by the Bible, 464, 
465; commanded by God, 662 
Smith, Dr. Wm., on the firmament, 219 
Sodom and Gomorrah, 563 
Solomon, 434 

Soul, the, 208; how used in the Old 
Testament, 210, 211; not given to 
man at the time of creation, 210 
Space, matter, and duration, 146 
Spermatozoon, 751 



INDEX. 


833 


Spinoza, 186 

Spirit of the Lord, the, 442 
Spirits, lying, 674 
Sphtfoot, as a poet, 527, 542 
Star of Bethlehem, 114, 117, 787 
Star-gods, 573 

Story of Boaz and Ruth, its moral, 16 
Sunday, the injustice of laws enforcing 
observance of, 656 
Swine, the drowning of, 799 
Sylvester, 648 
Synod of Ephesus, 93 

Tabernacle, the Hebrew, 350 
Talmud, the, 49 

Tamar, her liaison with Judah, 296 
Tempiation, of God and not of God, 
398 

Theory of Development, 189 

Therapeuts, 794 

Throne of God, location of, 224 

Tiberias, 803 

Tillemont, 96 

Tindal, 93 

Tower of Babel, 562 
Tree of Life, the, 210; of knowledge 
of good and evil, 672 


Trichinae, 545 

Trimurti, the Hindoo trinity, similarity 
of to Christian trinity, 208 
Trinity, the, its Hindoo prototvpe, 208, 
531 

Unbelief, penalty of, according to 
John, 453 

Union by marriage between God and 
Israel, 707 
Universalists, 599 

Universe, its true system not shadow¬ 
ed forth in the Bible, 214 

Vicarious atonement, 764 
Virgins, the thirty-two thousand, 417 

Wars of the Lord, book of the, 44 
Water at the time of creation, 197 
Wise men from the east, 112-117, 785 
Witches, 444 

Women, considered as property, 466; 
Midianitish, given to the soldiers, 
466 

Zechariah, 528, 819 
Zephamah, the prophet, 61, 809 










































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